Eat the Weak
by SlimJames
Summary: Sequel to "Yes I am an Animal". Zuko's back and he's got a plan; he's done being the prey. Now, he's the predator.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello, Hello! SlimJames is back with the sequel to **Yes I am an Animal**_. _I had been planning to post this back in February, but school and real life kept getting in the way. Anyway, I'm not going to take up too much of your time; Hope you enjoy this one!_

_**Eat the Weak**_

**Chapter 1**

'…_I'm a beast and you are my feast, all I do is stalk the earth and eat the weak…'_

"It's not the heat, it's the humidity."

He had never actually gotten the point of that phrase; but then, considering where he was from, how could he? He had been born and bred in a land where warmth- real warmth- was about as elusive and impossible as keeping a single snowflake from melting in the palm of your hand. You wrapped yourself in layers upon layer of fur and leather; parkas, boots, baklavas, leggings, undercoats, overcoats and scarves yet you could never keep out the cold. It always, always crept in to bite the tip of your nose or creep into the soles of your feet. In the land of his ancestors, warmth was an illusion.

In this new land though- the pit that had spawned the raging assholes that were the sworn enemies of everything he believed in- warmth was most definitely not an illusion. Sokka of the Water Tribe sighed and, for what must have been the eighteenth time in the last ten minutes, cursed whichever malevolent spirit it was that got its rocks of finding new and sadistic ways to screw with him. Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rising, the young warrior shot a furtive glance over his shoulder. In the space of a second his blue eyes scanned the street behind him, still cluttered with revelers from the day's carnival festivities even though the sun had gone down several hours ago. He didn't see anybody suspicious. That didn't mean anything. Focusing his vision back on the path in front of him, the Water Tribe warrior stepped up his pace slightly and told himself not to panic.

'_Crak'_

Some semi-drunken partygoer threw a firecracker into the young warrior's path; it took every ounce of self-control in Sokka's body to stop himself from breaking into a full sprint.

_Damn it_. He was panicking.

Beneath his traveler's cloak, the young warrior fondled the handle of a small carving knife that he had managed to lift from a fruit stand he had passed by earlier in the day; at the moment, it was the only armament that he had. The people of this smallish Fire Nation home island- Sokka couldn't actually remember it's name- were having some kind of festival celebrating the sun or dragon bladders…or something. When he had crossed over from the much larger neighboring island of Sao, the Water Tribe warrior had counted himself fortunate; in places this small, strangers stuck out farther than the rear end of an Omashu courtesan, but the festival attracted visitors from all over the region. In that kind of atmosphere a brown-skinned fella like himself would, if not fit _right_ in with the fairer skinned Fire Nation locals, at least not raise too many eyebrows.

The random cracks of firecrackers and the off-key notes of half-slurred drinking songs flying through the air only served to raise Sokka's hackles even more. he looked over his shoulder again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the phantom pursuers that his eyes told him weren't there, but who his gut told him were lurking in the mouth of every dark alleyway. His heart beat faster as the fear and anxiety that had been building up the past several days since his escape from those bounty hunters was beginning to reach its boiling point.

Where were they? They could be anywhere- behind the next corner, or hiding behind a food stall, or creeping up behind hi-…

"Stop it," Sokka snapped to himself. A young couple passing from the opposite direction sent him strange looks; he barely noticed.

Stopping in his tracks, the young warrior forced his eyes closed and struggled to keep the burbling emotions threatening to force him into a mental breakdown from getting the best of him. Sokka had spent a good portion of the last few years as a fugitive of one sort or another, but he had never had to do it by himself. Without his sister or his friends around, it was much harder to cope with the stress that came with the knowledge that he had a pretty sizable price on his head.

There was one thing that he knew with absolute certainty; he was starting to crack up. He needed to find a place to relax and pull himself together before he did something stupid. Reopening his eyes, Sokka surveyed his surroundings once more- this time with an eye for a temporary diversion instead of an eye for enemies. There were several places to choose from; taverns and sporting houses ran up and down both sides of the town's main- in fact, it's _only_- street. Each and every one appeared to be packed with festival goers who had decided to come off of the streets and continue the merriment with the assistance of alcohol and cheap food.

Seeing no difference between the various establishments, the Water Tribe warrior settled on the closet establishment near him, a semi-reputable tavern named the _Bounding_ _Wave._ Stepping towards the door, Sokka pushed the lightweight wooden barrier aside and stepped into the building. The very first thing that popped into his head was just how godawful hot it was inside. He had thought that the weather outside was bad, but it was even worse indoors. Outside the heat was fierce; inside, it was positively oppressive, almost like it had a physical presence. The air hung around Sokka's shoulders, heavy as a wet wool blanket.

He was just about to turn around and head back out the door, determined to find someplace- anyplace- that was better than this. He had just placed his foot on the threshold when he froze and considered that no place else in this town was likely to be any cooler than the _Bounding Wave_ and he would just have to deal with the heat. The young warrior slumped his shoulders in defeat and headed for the bar, a sigh of bitter resignation rising from his lips as beads of sweat trickled down his forehead to collect on his nose. Grumbling at the happy faces around him- nobody else seemed to be the least bit bothered by the heat, the jerks- Sokka clambered onto one of the wooden stools next to the bar.

Rapping his knuckles on the surprisingly smooth countertop, the young warrior was able to catch the attention of the bearded, red faced bar tender.

"What're ya havin' stranger," the bare armed man asked him in the semi-rustic accent that people around these parts spoke with.

"A shot of something that will kill most small species of vermin," Sokka replied flippantly.

The barkeep replied without missing a beat. "Ah, got yerself a lice problem, eh?"

The young warrior smirked, delighted to have run into someone who actually knew how to banter. He sat up a little straighter and made a production of scratching his head and his armpits.

"They're more like _super_-lice. I don't know what it is about this island, but the bugs here are insane. The creepy-crawlies living on me must be part komodo-rhino or something."

The bearded liquor slinger chuckled; he was long since used to outsiders and their tales of encountering some of the _delights _of a backwater island like this. Reaching underneath the counter, the bartender withdrew a large clay jug and cup. The man dropped them both onto the counter top. Sokka quirked an eyebrow at the unexpectedly large container of alcohol; from the sound of the swishes coming from inside of the jug, the thing was almost full.

The young warrior looked up at the older man with a '_what the hell are you showing me'_ look on his face.

"Hair of the Dragon," the barkeep stated, a glint of what might have been mischief shining in his golden eyes, "guaranteed to leave ticks, fleas, lice, elephant-rats, and lesser men stone cold dead."

"Will it get me drunk," Sokka asked.

"Pathetically drunk."

Reaching into the pocket of his crimson trousers, the Water Tribe warrior withdrew one of the silver coins that was resting in his pocket and flipped it towards the barkeep; the bearded man deftly caught it in his hand.

"Leave the jug here, okay?"

"You got it. Careful with that stuff kid; hope you don't mind me sayin' but you look like a bit of a lightweight."

Sokka chuckled and waved the man away, all the while giving assurances that he could handle whatever cheap washbasin swill the taverns of this backwater village could dish out. It was a complete lie, of course. The Water Tribe warrior was not much of a drinking man; to be completely honest, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't touch the sauce with a ten foot pole. Fortunately- or rather, _un_fortunately, considering his current state of affairs- these were not normal circumstances. Through a series of hilariously unfortunate accidents, incidents, and run-ins with the authorities of the Fire Nation, Sokka had found himself alone, in the middle of enemy territory with no maps, no weapons, no friends and very little hope of continuing to live as a free man.

So yeah; if anybody needed a drink right then, it was him.

Reaching for the jug with his left hand, Sokka grabbed a-hold of the neck and pulled the container closer to himself while his right hand grabbed the cup. The clay containers scraped across the countertop. Pausing only to wipe the sweat from his brow- and to once again wonder just how anybody managed to stand the weather in this country- Sokka busied himself with preparing his drink. Popping the cork of the clay jar, the young warrior decided to test the potency of Hair of the Dragon with an experimental sniff.

Sokka reeled back in his seat as the alcohol fumes rushed up his nose; he hacked so hard that he had to struggle to keep from falling over in his seat.

'_Jeez! Did that barkeep just give me a jug of paint remover by mistake_,' the young warrior thought to himself.

Sokka shuddered and clamped one of his fingers tightly over a nostril and blew in a vain attempt to physically remove the stinging sensation from his nose. He only succeeded in dislodging a small bit of snot onto the front of his cloak that he was quick to wipe away before anybody noticed. Re-grabbing the neck of the jug of spirits, the Water Tribe warrior tipped the container over and poured himself a healthy shot of the amber liquid inside.

"Alright, I'll admit that your bark was pretty intense," the young man said to the alcohol, "now let's see about your bite."

Picking up the cup and moving it towards his lips, Sokka hesitated for a second as it occurred to him that he was not exactly in the best physical condition. In between his escape from the bounty hunters, his stowaway voyage to this island and his general frazzled state, he just might be fragile enough that this unholy brew that he was about to throw back would potentially be potent enough to kill him. The image of him keeling over flashed through the Water Tribe warrior's mind; right on its heels was another thought, one which had allowed generations of mankind to disregard any ideas of logic and self-preservation that happened to arise on the cusp of a bad decision.

Fuck it.

Shoving aside his misgivings, Sokka knocked back the cup and its contents in one fluid motion; the amber liquor burned its way down his throat, searing every inch of the lining of his mouth and throat. To his horror, the burning was not limited to the mouth and throat that had consumed the alcohol, but was reaching up his nose and into his skull. It was as if some kind of malevolent booze spirit had decided that it would be fun to tunnel inside of his brain through his nose and set up a campfire in there.

Less five seconds after swallowing the Hair of the Dragon, Sokka found himself doubled over the countertop, violently coughing and retching as his body tried to reject what he had just put into it. In the midst of his misery, the young warrior noted that it was fortunate that he had a strong constitution; otherwise, the day's meals- meager though they were- would have ended up all over the bar, and probably some of his fellow patrons.

Around him, locals familiar with the sight of an ignorant outsider feeling the effects of the _Bounding Wave's_ signature spirit smirked at each other knowingly and had a few chuckles at the skinny, swarthy kid's expense. Regaining some semblance of control over himself, the scarlet clad warrior looked down the bar towards the bartender; the bearded man was grinning evilly. Sokka flipped him the one finger salute; funnily enough, the young warrior wasn't mad. In fact- if he were to be totally honest- he was actually starting to feel pretty damn good.

"I'm already buzzed after one shot," he mumbled to himself in amazement.

Sokka wasn't a drinking man, but even a lightweight like him should not have this good of a buzz going after just one shot. Raising his head up from its resting place on the bar top, the Water Tribe warrior looked upon the jug of alcohol with a newfound respect. Pouring himself another- smaller- portion, Sokka quickly knocked back his cup. It wasn't so bad the second time around; he hardly coughed and didn't feel like throwing up even once.

His world was just beginning to settle into the rosy haze of inebriation when he detected the presence of someone getting uncomfortably close to his elbow. Cutting his eyes to the side warily as he reached to pour himself another shot of liquid death, the young warrior took in the vampish female that had sidled up close to him while he wasn't looking.

"Hiya," she said coyly.

She had a medium-pretty face; earthy and attractive without the elegance that it took to qualify as gorgeous. Round, full cheeks and pouty lips- painted deep red- sat beneath a short and unobtrusive nose. Her eyes, like many of the people in the Fire Nation home islands, were a shade of golden yellow; in her case, a dull and dark color that put him in the mind of the rotting rind of a geechie squash.

Through examining the face, Sokka changed his focus towards the body. The deep red garment that was draped about her body exposed a fair amount of skin for him to ogle. Her plunging neckline gave a largely unimpeded view of her breasts and the upper half of her stomach. Moving his gaze downwards, Sokka saw that slits had been cut into the legs of her outfit so that everyone could get a good view of her legs.

And as far as legs went, they were _very_ nice; toned, strong and shapely.

"Well hello there yourself," Sokka replied from over the rim of a third shot of spirits. He drained it in one gulp and his face contorted into an ugly knot.

"Having a problem handling that stuff," the mysterious woman with the plunging neckline said.

"You could say that," the Water Tribe warrior replied, his voice a strangled rasp.

"I had figured that the first shot had killed off my sense of taste, so taking a few more wouldn't hurt me. It's just a shame that it didn't stay dead."

After setting the cup down and taking a few lungfuls of air, the young warrior turned his head to devote his full attention to his new lady friend. He extended a friendly hand.

"The names…Li."

"Li, huh? Seems to be a million of you guys running around."

Sokka chuckled slightly. "So I've been told. And you are…"

"Chaka," the girl replied. She extended her own hand, which Sokka grasped delicately and brought up to his lips for a soft kiss.

"My, my, my; did I mistakenly run into a gentleman?"

The Water Tribe warrior snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Hardly," he quipped before refocusing on her face.

"So, it was the skin, right," Sokka asked, smiling slightly as he toyed with the cup with his free hand. The girl looked confused.

"Come again?"

The buzzed warrior smirked knowingly at her nonplussed expression. "What attracted you to me; it was my skin, right? I've been told that the darker tone makes me seem more exotic, especially around all of these palefaces."

Sokka waved a hand around the room to indicate the other patrons crowding the establishment and their unambiguously un-dusky complexions. Chaka smiled coyly.

"Well, you do tend to stand out in a crowd."

"_Shit_," Sokka muttered under his breath.

"What was that," his new companion asked.

"Oh, u-um…nothing. Go on, I'm listening."

Chaka inched closer to him and leaned forward ever so slightly so that the young warrior could get a good look down into her breasts. Almost of their own will, Sokka's eyes were drawn downwards. The girl brought her lips up closer to his ear in spoke in what they warrior assumed was the most sensuous tone as she could muster in an environment filled with rambunctious and increasingly drunken partygoers.

"I've got an idea," she said. "Why don't you and I get out of this place and find a quiet spot somewhere?"

The young woman inched even closer. Sokka could feel the warmth of her breath against the nape of his neck as her words traveled up into his ear. Underneath the countertop, the sozzled young warrior could feel a small hand settling into his lap.

"You know that the beach isn't too far of a walk from here. We could…"

Chaka stopped dead, mid-sentence, as she felt something poking against her stomach, in the fleshy area just underneath her ribs. The young woman sent a glance downwards and saw the tip of the knife pressed against an area where it was guaranteed to do some serious damage. The fact that she was standing so close to him meant that he could stick her a few times and walk away before anybody else at the bar knew anything was wrong. She wouldn't even have enough time to pull away from the blade if he did decide to start stabbing. If he knew where to put it, she could bleed out in minutes. _Fuck_; she'd been made.

"Hey, eyes up here!"

Lifting her eyes back upwards she saw the expression on the face of the man she had been sent to mark had changed. It wasn't anything drastic- no gnashing of teeth or snarling demands for answer for who she was or who she was working with. No, it was much more subtle. The dusky skinned man still wore the same lazy expression on his face, but his eyes had taken on a steely intelligence that had been absent just a second before.

"This isn't really necessary you know; I'm here to help you."

The nonchalant way that she spoke that sentence gave Sokka the impression that this wasn't the first time somebody had put something sharp and pointy up to her vital areas. Frankly, that worried him, because if she was no stranger to this kind of situation then that probably also meant that she was one of the people after his bounty.

"You want to help me? You don't even know me; what reason could you possibly have to get involved in my business."

He didn't recognize her from the group that had captured him before, but that didn't really mean anything; he was worth a lot of money. That kind of notoriety tended to attract a variety of pursuers.

"_My_ reason is that I was told to get involved," Chaka replied.

"By who?"

There was a pause. The girl didn't seem to want to answer that question, so Sokka jabbed the knife into her a little more, just enough to break the skin. He repeated his question.

"By who," he said, dropping his conversational tone along the way.

Sokka, in the part of his mind that could always remain objective, recognized that the stress of the past few days, plus the alcohol he had consumed was starting to get the best of him. He had to keep a lid on the situation; sew up his frayed nerves. Otherwise, he'd end up gutting this girl like a fucking harp-seal; and he had no desire to do that. Not yet.

Chaka simply looked at him impassively, seemingly not caring in the slightest that the jittery young man with the knife to her gut was possibly seconds away from ripping her open like a fish. The Water Tribe warrior took note; this girl had ice water running through her veins. Maybe a change in tactics was in order- being menacing had never been one of his strengths anyway. Retracting his knife from the girl's ribs and stowing it back beneath his cloak. Settling his elbows back onto the countertop, Sokka leaned his tired head against one of his hands.

"I'm going to ask you this one more time," he said. Much of the hostility had left his voice, but his tone was far from friendly.

"Who told you to come in here and play the mating dance with me?"

Chaka eased a few inches away from the young man; though he seemed to have changed his mind about getting violent, she it prudent to give herself some room to move just in case he got any more ideas.

"He just told me that you and had him were old 'traveling companions' or something like that. And before you start asking me any more questions, I'll spell this out for you right now. I was given _strict_ instructions to not give you any details on what he currently looks like."

Sokka was getting increasingly confused.

"Does this mystery acquaintance of mine have a name?"

"I know him as Ban," she replied.

"I don't know anybody named Ban."

The girl simply shrugged. "Yeah, but you know how it goes in our business; a name doesn't really mean all that much. Right now, its just important that you come with me."

The young warrior focused on a few words that she just said.

'_Our business?'_

There was a certain conspiratorial tone in her voice in the way she said that, like she was sharing an inside joke with him that an outsider wouldn't be able to get_. _Did she think that they were in the same line of work? That he was a criminal? Well, technically, he was a criminal, but there were certain _circumstances_…

Sokka's nimble mind was quickly beginning to develop a rough idea of the situation that currently faced him, but he was still a long way from knowing just what the hell was going on. Chaka's explanation had left him knowing slightly less than when he knew _nothing, _but he was able to surmise that she was under the impression that he was some kind of underworld figure. Whoever put that idea into her head- this Ban character- had to know _him_, Sokka of the Water Tribe. Maybe he shouldn't have put his knife away.

The Water Tribe warrior's normally expressive face remained frozen in an impassive scowl; he might not have known what kind of game was afoot, but it was clear to him that it was a game he would have to play.

"You say all of this stuff about friends with names I don't recognize and then just expect for me to come with you because you tell me to?"

Sokka cracked open the neglected jug of Hair of the Dragon and poured himself another shot.

"Weeelll, there's that," Chaka said playfully. "There's also the fact that those goons you slipped away from on the other island are in here right now and you're never going to get away without the help of me and my associates."

The Water Tribe warrior gagged and coughed as the liquor he had been swallowing suddenly decided that it was going down the wrong pipe. His choking fit wasn't due to the fact that the bounty hunters had tracked him down; he had been expecting that. What really disturbed him was that the girl had pretty much revealed that she and her group had been keeping track of him for Spirits knew how long _before_ he had ever set foot on this island.

"Come again," he wheezed.

The young woman at his side held up a finger and began pointing them out.

"End of the bar; one covering the front entrance; one covering the back way out."

A few furtive glances around the room confirmed that Chaka was speaking the truth. Sokka gave a frustrated sigh and massaged his temples, desperately trying to relieve the pressure that was building up inside of his skull.

"Just great; Slap-Head, Beard-O, Jerkass are all here."

He caught Chaka giving him a weird look.

"Slap-Head, Beard-O and Jerkass?"

"One's bald, one's got a crazy mountain man beard crawling with mountain-man-beard-parasites and the last one's a jerkass," the young warrior replied in a tone that said he was annoyed at having to explain something so obvious.

Chaka rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Look, we've spent too much time here as it is. I'm leaving, you want to join me, or do you want to stay here and wait for those guys to take you away and do _the bad thing_ to you."

Sokka felt conflicted; while he certainly didn't want anybody doing "the bad thing" to him, he wasn't crazy over the idea of going off with a shady group that he knew nothing about. On the other hand, from what Chaka was saying, this unknown party wanted him for something, but weren't interested in his bounty. The question was- if not for his bounty, what did they want him for?

Scoffing at this new turn in his luck, the young warrior hopped off of his stool and wobbled on his feet before finally regaining control of his balance. He offered his arm to the young woman next to him, which she quickly accepted.

"Please tell me you've got some backup," Sokka asked.

"You'd think I'd come here by myself," Chaka replied. "Besides, those guys shouldn't be stupid enough to make a scene in public. Just be cool and act drunker than you are; we'll be fine as long as nobody does anything crazy."

The pair had taken their first steps towards the exit when the young warrior abruptly stopped in his tracks. Chaka looked up at him with an impatient look on her face.

"What?"

"Just hold on for a second," Sokka replied.

The young woman watched as, turning on his heel, he walked back over to the space that he had vacated just a few seconds ago, poured himself another shot and knocked it back with hardly a gasp or sputter. Chaka rolled her eyes but said nothing when he came back and retook her arm; some people needed a little something extra to help them through a stressful situation. She certainly wasn't one to judge.

As they approached the main entrance Chaka kept on eye on her charge and the other on a grotesquely muscular man who could only be the Beard-O that Sokka had described earlier. The hairy man was staring holes right through the both of them, and doing a pretty pathetic job at keeping his interest discreet. Chaka whispered instructions to the unsteady warrior walking beside her.

"Stagger a bit more when you walk; we really need to sell this."

In response, the Water Tribe warrior's gait became even more ungainly and he leaned more heavily on the smaller woman next to him. Chaka congratulated him on improving his act, but the truth was that Sokka really was having a harder time standing up and walking straight. He realized, with an odd mix of horror and booze induced amusement that that shit that had choking down was _really_ starting to kick in.

In this fashion, the stumbling pair made their way past the mash of people crowding the floor of the bar and out the main door. The fresh air of the outside world hit Sokka's senses with the force of a sucker punch, jolting his entire body after being in the stale air of the _Bounding Wave_. Unfortunately, it was still hot; not as hot as the inside of the tavern of course but still uncomfortably warm.

"This way; we need to get to the bridge."

The Water Tribe warrior felt a none too gentle tug on his arm as Chaka pulled him to the out into the street. Behind them, they could hear the heavy footsteps of someone- probably Beard-O- following behind them. The young duo ignored him the best they could. Chaka pulled Sokka in the direction that led to the outskirts of town; given that the town wasn't all that big to begin with, the outskirts were not that far.

From what he could remember about the general layout of the surrounding area, the young warrior knew that they were moving in the direction of a creek which wound around the landward side of the village. Untold centuries of erosion had created a sizable gully along the path of the flowing water and a bridge had been built to connect the town with the opposite bank. To all appearances Sokka and Chaka looked just like a hooker and a john heading off to conclude some "business".

With every step they took, the pair got farther and farther away from the lights of the town, into the darkness which sat at the edge of vision. With every step he took, Sokka tried to force the butterflies fluttering around randomly in his stomach to be still. Chaka and he were virtually alone out there on the outskirts, having long since passed the town's chubby constable- passed out drunk at his guardpost with a half-eaten bag of Fire Flakes hanging limply from an unconscious hand. The Water Tribe warrior snorted at the sight.

Out at the edge of the settlement, away from the sounds of merriment still ringing in the town, it was easy for his sharp ears to pick up every croak and chirp and crack and howl that radiated from the nearby wilderness.

And he could especially hear the sound Beard-O's heavy footfalls their pursuer sped up his pace.

The duo reached the bridge and Chaka pulled Sokka in the direction of footpath that led down to the creek bed. However, before they could even get on to the path he felt a rough hand grip the back collar of his cloak; before his sozzled brain could fully process what was going on, the young warrior found that the girl that had been serving as his support suddenly ripped away from his grasp. Sokka was unbalanced, but managed to keep his feet underneath him.

"Been lookin' everywhere for you beanpole," Beard-O growled, the stench of his foul breath making him screw his face up in displeasure.

"What the hell is your problem man," Chaka shrieked from her place on the ground, still playing the part of the aggrieved hooker.

"You're costing me money right now!"

Beard-O turned and stuck a massive finger in her face.

"You shut your filthy whore mouth before I put it to better use," the bearded man barked before turning back to the smaller man he held by the neck.

Chaka bit her lip in annoyance. She shot a quick look towards town and cursed when she caught a glimpse of a solitary figure coming towards them.

"All that aggravation you caused us, and you were about to go off and have fun? I'm going to enjoy kicking the shit out of you."

The young woman watched as the massive man reared back a hand, preparing to bring it down on her charge's head. She had to put a stop to this; Ban and the boss had told her to bring him back unhurt. If she let the guy get smashed by some shaven gorilla-bull, she would never hear the end of it. Still, there wasn't a whole lot that she could do in this type of situation; she hadn't brought along any weapons and she wasn't the greatest when it came to hand-to-hand combat.

While Chaka considered what to do, Beard-O was about to smash his young captive's face in. He paused, however when the younger man held up a hand, urging him to wait.

"Mmmh! Mmnnh! _Mmnh!_"

Thoughts of violence were temporarily forgotten as Beard-O stared at the younger man in wary confusion. Holding up a finger to indicate that he needed a second, Sokka pulled back the other side of his cloak; Chaka noticed that he was cupping something in the palm of his hand and was surprised to see that it was one of the small glass candle bowls that had lined the countertops of the bar that they had just left. How the hell had he managed to sneak one of those without her noticing?

Baffled, the young woman watched as Sokka held the still burning candle up to the bearded man's face. Before anyone could blink the Water Tribe warrior took a quick inhalation through his nose before spitting out the shot of alcohol he had been carrying in his mouth all this time. The volatile liquid was released in a spray, which reacted violently when it hit the flame on the candle.

_Fwoosh _

The sound of the fireball was quickly drowned out by Beard-O's agonized shrieks as the alcohol propelled flames flew straight into his unprotected face. He hadn't even had time to blink; the fire caught the delicate fleshy orbs that were his eyes and flash fried them. In an instant, the folds of his eyelids fused together into an angry red mass of ruined skin, forcing his eyes to stay open. The smell of burnt hair stank up the air as big man's mighty beard caught fire and smoldered on his face, adding to the damage.

Driven mad with pain, the bounty hunter spun away from his captive, beating at his own face to try to put out his burning beard and crying every vile curse he could thing of into the empty night sky. Chaka watched, fascinated, as the young man she had been sent to retrieve- still wobbling slightly on his feet- walked up behind the wounded bounty hunter and delivered a hard kick to the backs of the other man's knees. As Beard-O tumbled onto the ground, the Water Tribe warrior reached into his waistband and withdrew his knife.

He grabbed the back of Beard-O's wooly head and calmly, almost casually, took the knife and drew it across the bounty hunter's throat. The big man's screams halted- dying half-born in his throat as his life's blood dripped out of the neat cut across his neck. Beard-O gurgled and weakly clutched at his neck for a few seconds, trying in vain to stem the flow of blood before his arms finally fell to his sides, lifeless.

Sokka turned away from the corpse- consciously making an effort not to look at it- as he wiped the blade clean.

"Wow… I guess I was rushing for nothing…"

Sokka and Chaka turned at the sound of the new voice; no more than a few feet away from them in the darkness stood a man that was slightly taller than the Water Tribe warrior. The weak light of the moon did not provide enough illumination for Sokka to make out his features too well, but he could tell that the new man seemed to be cradling something beneath his arm. The young warrior immediately went on his guard, but Chaka placed a gentle hand on his arm, silently telling him to calm down.

"Chill out; this guy's a friend."

The girl raised her hand in greeting. "Nice timing Luzai. If you're here then I guess it's safe to assume that those other two bounty hunters won't be a problem anymore?"

"...You know me," Luzai replied in _by far_ the creepiest monotone Sokka had ever heard.

The dark man held up the object that he was carrying; it was round, about the size of a medium sized melon. Something in Sokka's gut was told him that Luzai was not carrying a melon.

"I liked this one; he made interesting sounds…"

Sokka wondered just what the hell he was stepping into.

"….Oookaaay, how about we just end this conversation before it starts getting weird," Sokka interjected.

"Look we're wasting time Li," Chaka said. "It's time we take you to meet the rest of the crew so we can get down to some real work."

'_Real work?' _

Sokka frowned, though his dour expression was hidden by the darkness; he didn't want to go anywhere with these people. He didn't want to have anything to do with them or their work, but at the moment he couldn't come up with an idea of how to get away. This group- or more precisely, that Ban guy that Chaka mentioned- knew who he was. More disturbingly, that mystery man had somehow managed to track him all the way to the middle of nowhere and claimed that they knew each other. Sokka hated walking into a situation without knowing the full score, but at the moment he was going to have to do just that.

The young warrior turned to Luzai, who was busy humming what might have been a lullaby to the mystery thing he was cradling in his arms. Sokka quickly turned around to face Chaka.

"Before we go anywhere, you guys wouldn't happen to know where Beard-O and Jerkass and Slap-Head were staying, would you?"

"Of course," she replied. "Why do you want to go there?"

"Because I think they've still got some of my stuff"

* * *

"_You're a nightmare boy. A straight motherfuckin' nightmare…"_

_He looked up at the other man sharing the cold limestone cell with him._

"_How do you figure Jiji?"_

_The older convict just laughed; it was unearthly, guttural. It was a sound that grated against the senses and made the skin crawl with every ream of black mirth that came spilling out of his mouth. It wasn't the type of sound that a man should make._

"_Because I have clarity; I've been inside," Jiji rapped the side of his head with his knuckles. _

"_I know all of the little sick things you've been plotting; blood, flames and pain. That's all you seem to think about. The people that did you wrong, what you're going to do to them when they're finally in your power, the looks on their faces when they look up from that pool of their own blood and see you looking right back down on them."_

_Suddenly, the expression on Jiji's face changed; he no longer seemed amused. The lackadaisical smirk on his face turned into a frown; cruel mirth in his eyes dissolving into bitter pity._

"_You've got it all planned out; all you've got to do is get your tools together."_

_He paused for a moment._

"_You know what's going to happen to you, right?"_

_Visions of war and turmoil flashed before his eyes; his bones smashed, his face mashed to a bloody pulp, his skin blackened by the very flames he commanded- he saw it and he laughed. He saw the end, and all he could do was laugh. _

"…_Yeah," he replied. "I wonder how I get there…"_

_

* * *

_

"GAH!"

A dream; it was just a dream. Just a dream; none of that happened- none of it was real. He looked around his dwelling; the cold stone of the cave he was squatting in was not so different from the bare cells of Jade Passage. He cupped his head in his hands and tried to choke down the feeling of sickness that was building in his gut. Bad dreams- bad fucking dreams.

It took him a second longer than it should have to notice that someone was standing at the entrance of his room.

"What is it," he growled.

"Chaka and Luzai are back, my dear. They've got some scrawny brown skinned fellow with them; he demanding to see you."

A hand thick with calluses fingered the violent red scar that disfigured half of his face. He could hear the voice of the old matron whose job it was to instruct him in etiquette, telling him that the polite thing to do would be to go out and greet his guest. He started to push himself off of his makeshift bed, but stopped and sat back down. His eyes were rooted to a spot on the floor; he didn't feel like moving just yet.

"If's he that earnest, send him in…"

The sound of a pair of feet walking away was quickly followed by the sound of a pair of feet approaching. The curtain that blocked view into his cave/room was pushed aside. He finally looked up; blue eyes met golden eyes.

"You?"

He had expected him to sound more surprised

"Me," he replied, acknowledging that he was indeed really here.

A heavy silence hung in the air as neither young man spoke a word nor moved a muscle. Finally Sokka sighed and chuckled to himself before fixing the former prince of the Fire Nation with a steely gaze.

"So I guess this is where it get's interesting..."

* * *

_**And that's the end of that chapter. Please review and tell me what you think, this is all for the sake of improving as a writer!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_Sorry for the delay on this chapter, it was supposed to come out on the first of the month. My schedule, what with the summer school and the preparation for an academic conference, was chocked full of stuff I had to do instead of writing this story. I had a whole rant against M. Night Shamaylan ready to go, but my righteous fury has been tempered over the last few days. I'll save it for the next chapter. Anyways, hope you enjoy this one._

**Chapter 2**

"…So I guess this is where it get's interesting."

The former prince silently appraised his new guest. Besides a few differences in appearance, the waterbender's brother looked much the way he remembered. His clothes color scheme had changed; the familiar blues of the Water Tribe discarded in favor of the deep crimson and black hues of the Fire Nation. That ridiculous wolf-tail hairstyle of his was gone, replaced by the topknot sported by most of the men in the Fire Nation.

The lanky warrior stood near the entrance of cave room. Chin up, arms crossed with a languid air of nonchalance hanging about his long face. The scarred prince stared his down; his guest stared right back. He knew that he should say something; the problem was, he didn't know what. A lot of thought had been put in to tracking Sokka down and getting him here, but the same couldn't be said about what he was going to say to him after he finally had him.

"You've probably got questions," the former prince said at last.

The Water Tribe warrior looked at him like he was an imbecile; everyone in the room was fully aware of how lame that sounded.

"Yeah, you could say that," Sokka replied coldly.

"First one that springs to mind is, why is the freaking prince of the Fire Nation squatting in a cave with a team of escaped sanatorium inmates."

"_I. Am. Not. The. Prince_," the scarred man snapped in response, shooting a fearful glance at the thin curtain that served as the only barrier between his room and the outside world.

Sokka caught the look. The Water Tribe warrior looked puzzled for a second before firing a sly leer at his counterpart.

"They don't know who you are… how do they not know who you are?"

It was a fair question. In the Fire Nation, the cult of personality that surrounded the Royal Family was as ancient as the bones in the Dragon Crypt in the royal city. The people of this nation were taught to view the Fire Lord as an infallible, almost god-like figure. Pictures of Ozai and Azula and other members of the lineage of Sozin were literally plastered everywhere, constantly enforcing the idea of loyalty to not just the nation, but to the people who ruled it.

"When I was _banished_, I wasn't just banished from my country. For the disgrace that I brought on my family, any likeness of me that existed was ordered removed or destroyed," Zuko said hollowly.

"Plus, I don't exactly look like myself anymore."

The Water Tribe warrior had to admit, the former Prince Zuko looked radically different from the swaggering figure that he had first encountered so long ago. Sokka remembered his old adversary as a smooth-faced teen, stoutly built with an imperious air about his head. The person who sat before him sported a coarse growth of hair on his chin and his cheeks, bravely trying to grow into something resembling a respectable beard. Tattoos encircled his neck. A rough crown of matted hair hung down from his head, partially obscuring his sunken golden eyes from view.

Sokka had vivid memories of the now ex-prince; in particular, the way he used to constantly look down his nose at him and his sister, as if they were something foul on the bottom of his boot. That air of superiority which had so infuriated Sokka in the past was no longer present. Now, Zuko's shoulders slumped and his head was held lower; he didn't look down his nose, but straight ahead. In place of that old arrogance, there was something else, a kind of primal aura of danger that the young warrior couldn't place a name on, but which immediately put him on edge.

The former prince sat, coiled, in his seat. Relaxed and yet still ready for action, promising to instantly explode into violence at the nearest provocation.

No doubt about it, this was a whole new Zuko.

"What are you even doing here," the Water Tribe warrior asked at last.

"I could ask you the same thing," the former prince replied.

Sokka watched as the other young man reached underneath the simple straw stuffed cot that served as his bed and extracted an extremely weathered and creased piece of parchment. The young warrior felt his stomach sinking when he saw it; he really hoped that wasn't what he thought that was. Zuko pushed himself up from his threadbare bed and shoved the parchment into Sokka's face; as usual, the young warrior's hopes ended in disappointment.

"What the hell is this," the scarred one growled.

The young warrior paused and made a show of closely examining the piece of paper in question.

"It's a wanted poster," he finally answered authoritatively.

"A wanted poster with your face on it," Zuko said sharply. He was in no mood for the other man's jokes.

"Ah! I thought I recognized that sexy son-of-a-bitch," Sokka said flippantly.

Feeling his temper starting to crest, the former prince crumpled the broadside in his fist and locked onto the younger man with a glare full of fury and fire.

"You're wanted for murder," the scarred one snapped, making no secret of his anger.

He had come a long way to get his hands on the lanky tribesman, and he wasn't happy at the idea that the other young man could be more of a liability than an asset. His ambitions could not take another failure.

"Yeah, and what about it," Sokka snapped back, his own temper flaring up unexpectedly.

Zuko quirked an eyebrow at the reaction; that flash of rage his counterpart had let slip was unexpected. Though the Water Tribe warrior's expression was guarded, the former prince had the sense that Sokka had not wanted to display that side of himself. Zuko wisely restrained his own temper and decided to back off; he wasn't here to antagonize the other young man, he was here to get him on his side. The Water Tribe warrior's alleged crime was obviously a sore spot, so he would do his best to avoid exploring the topic.

For now at least.

Inhaling and exhaling sharply, the former prince turned away from his guest and sat back down onto his cot.

"How about we save the backstories for later and just focus on the now. Agreed?"

Though the young warrior sent his scarred counterpart a look cold enough to freeze a boiling pot of tea, the tribesman finally nodded his own head in acceptance.

"Agreed," Sokka said. He didn't have any idea what the deposed prince was plotting, but the young warrior had to admit to himself that he was curious about where this was all headed. It was probably best to deal with the situation at hand first before trying to figure out anything else. Shoving aside his discomfort Sokka looked across to his scarred counterpart and asked.

"So tell me, you and the merry band of misfits out there, what's that all about?"

The warrior's old adversary treated him to a long look. "You want the long story or the short story?"

Sokka paused for a moment in consideration before shrugging his shoulders flippantly.

"…Fuck it; the short version will do for now."

The former prince locked eyes with the Water Tribe warrior. "We need you for a job."

"What kind of _job_," Sokka replied, tersely.

Rather than giving him a direct answer, the scarred prince simply rose from his seat and beckoned for his guest to follow him. Annoyed, but realizing that he should have seen a response like this coming, Sokka grumbled under his breath but followed the other young man's wake.

As they emerged from the scarred man's room, Sokka's eyes wandered in every direction. The Water Tribe warrior had been blindfolded and disarmed for his trip to the gang's hideout and had only had the cloth over his eyes removed upon setting foot in the final destination. The only thing that Sokka knew was that he had been taken here by boat- he could still faintly hear the ocean waves crashing outside- but he didn't know if he was on one of the thousands of tiny islands that dotted the seas in these parts or if he was just in some cave that was hidden away on the side of the island where he had been hiding. Scanning the room, the young warrior estimated that there were about twenty to twenty-five rough looking men, and a few rougher looking women, lounging around; every single one was armed. The young warrior really, _really_ wanted to have his sword back within reaching distance.

Sokka had followed the scarred prince deeper into the cave; passing through a short tunnel, the pair walked into a separate cavern. The Water Tribe warrior was immersed in total darkness for an eerie moment before emerging from the tunnel. The yellow-orange lights of a several fires cast a dim light on the opposing walls. Sokka could hear several hushed voices but couldn't see anyone yet. Rounding a gigantic stalagmite, the young warrior and the former prince arrived in a chamber where the cave floor sunk several feet, forming a natural bowl.

Inside of the bowl where a group of five people were loitering amongst a collection of large rocks; the odd shadows being thrown about by the light of the fires obscured the features of the assembled strangers. The conversations that had been going on before abruptly ended as soon as the presence of the two young men was detected. Almost as one, the five figures turned towards the prince and the warrior.

Sokka squinted his eyes against the darkness, trying to make out the faces of who he was meeting. He was pretty sure he recognized Chaka and Luzai; the former from her build and stance, and the latter from the fact that he was still carrying that head under his arm. In short order, the Water Tribe warrior- whom everyone besides Zuko knew by the pseudonym "Li"- found himself thrust into the center of the sinister circle. The Water Tribe warrior could feel the rough caress of three pairs of eyes raking over his body; though he couldn't really see their faces, he could tell that they were sizing him up.

Sokka stayed loose, relaxed; there wasn't a shred of tension in his muscles, not an ounce of anxiousness in his stance. They weren't going to see him flinch, much less sweat.

After what seemed to the young warrior like a ridiculously long pause, somebody finally said something.

"So this is the man…"

Sokka cut his eyes towards the sound of the voice; it was emanating from one of the figures that were still shrouded in the gloomy half-light of the cavern. Okay; _that_ shit had to stop.

"Y'know, I usually like to see who I'm talking to. Why doesn't everybody just come to where we can all see each other," Sokka stated.

The Water Tribe warrior had sounded friendly enough, but beneath his light demeanor lay an unspoken demand. Sokka wasn't asking; he was telling.

The former prince grimaced as he felt the tension in the room rise another degree. His companions were not the type that liked to be ordered around, especially not by some newcomer whom none of them really knew. Deciding now would be a good time to intervene; the scarred firebender clapped his hands loudly. The ringing clack of Zuko's calloused palms reverberated off of the walls of the cavern and brought most eyes towards him.

"Do as he says," the former prince said.

"And who are you to tell us what to do," one of the phantom figures snapped.

"Oh, give it a rest Raro," a voice Sokka recognized as belonging to the girl- Chaka- spoke up.

Sokka stood stock still as the familiar face of the young woman emerged from the shadows. The faint light of the fires played against her skin, highlighting her features nicely. She walked until she stood beside the young warrior.

"Hey stranger," she said easily.

"Hey yourself," Sokka replied, slightly more wary. "You all really know how to make a guy feel welcome."

The girl winked at him, her demeanor seemingly much more open than it had been before.

"I don't even get while we're doing all of this cloak and dagger shit anyway; we're all felons here, right?"

"One can never be too careful," another voice said.

Apparently taking Chaka's lead, the rest of the assembled group decided to come out of the darkness and make themselves known. Along with the familiar faces of Luzai and Chaka were joined by three others whom the young warrior had never seen before.

There was a barrel-chested man with a fearsome scar across the bridge of his nose and a receding hairline; his entire demeanor screamed _"pirate!"_. He introduced himself, extending his hand abruptly and grunting out the name "Htoo" as Sokka greeted him; the man quickly retracted his hand and stepped back, eyeing the Water Tribe warrior warily. Next was a younger man who bore a fair resemblance to Htoo, except with lighter hair.

"I'm Raro," he stated without meeting Sokka's eye. The young warrior noted that Raro's eyes remained glued to the former Fire Prince, shooting him death glares. Sokka filed that information away in his head and moved on.

As the young warrior extended his hand for the third mystery member of the crew, he was shocked when his outstretched hand was knocked to the side, a pair of strong hands gripped the sides of his face and big wet kiss was planted on his lips. Sokka was, understandably, gobsmacked by the totally random assault on his face and only regained full reign of his senses when he felt tongue brushing across his teeth.

"WHOA," the young warrior exclaimed, yanking his head back and forcibly removing himself from the grip of his assailant.

"Hmph! No need to be so antsy; it's not like I've got anything," an effeminate and noticeably offended voice remarked.

Sokka raised a hand in an apologetic gesture. "No offense lady, but…"

His voice trailed off. In the past few minutes, the Water Tribe warrior's eyes had become more accustomed to the poor lighting in the cavern. A glacial feeling rose in his stomach; it had it's hair up in a feminine topknot; it was dressed in a feminine style kimono; the scent of sweet perfume wafted from its shoulders. Above the forehead and below the neck, it looked like a woman.

It wasn't a woman.

Though it was impossible to see in the darkness, all of the color drained from the young warrior's face. Slowly, a look of abject horror crept across Sokka's face. Zuko smirked at the other young man's plight, but felt a measure of sympathy for Sokka's discomfort. An unexpected faceful of transvestite would be hard for any red-blooded male to take.

"Li, meet Our Lady of Ng," Chaka said, not bothering to hide her amusement.

The Lady made an elegant curtsy and giggled demurely. "I hope that we can work well together."

"Umm… yeah," the Water Tribe warrior squeaked out.

Now that the introductions had all been made, the former prince decided that it was time to really get down to business.

"Alright, now that everybody's acquainted, let's get the last member of our circle up to speed."

The prospect of actually learning something was enough to tear Sokka's thought's- temporarily- away from the tranny tongue that had been wriggling around inside of his mouth.

"Just what I've been waiting for," Sokka exclaimed.

"So, what's the job?"

Chaka was the first one who spoke up. "Tell me Li, what do you know about the _Ran Fan_?"

* * *

Gathered around the low flame that was the only source of light in the cavern, the conspirators waited as their newest comrade mulled over the endeavor which they were planning to stake their lives on. Despite odd shadows playing across and obscuring Sokka's face, the former prince could tell by the warrior's body language that the other man was having trouble taking it all in.

"…so… it's like a _bank_," Sokka asked, seemingly confused.

"Yes," Zuko replied.

"We're going to _rob a bank?_"

"Yes."

Sokka opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, paused, then closed his mouth before opening up again.

"And…this bank is… floating out in the middle of ocean, because it's not a bank at all; it's a ship?"

"Do I really have to explain this to you again," Zuko snapped. He got the feeling that the Water Tribe warrior was acting dense just to annoy him.

If he was, it was definitely working, and not just on the scarred prince; Raro looked as if he wanted to throttle Sokkka. Even in darkness the deposed prince could see the mirth rising in the Water Tribe warrior's chest. It was almost like his golden eyes could see through into the other young man's soul. Like the proverbial butterflies that fluttered around in the gullets of the nervous, the chuckles were being birthed and beginning their erratic flight up his throat. Zuko traced the flight of the chuckles in detached interest; there! They had reached the apex of their flight and were gathering in the mouth. The Water Tribe warrior's cheeks began to swell up as more and more crammed themselves into the small space.

Sokka gamely tried to swallow them back down, or at the very least keep them restrained inside of his mouth, but the former prince could tell that the effort was going to be in vain. The young warrior's mental and physical reserves were giving way; he was at most two seconds away from cracking up.

One… two…

"_Pwwsh-he he he!_"

And there it goes.

The former prince sighed, somehow not surprised by Sokka's reaction. As far as plan's went, what Zuko and the crew had cooked up was… ambitious, to put it in charitable terms. The _Ran Fan_ was a warship- in fact, it was the largest war vessel ever created. Commissioned by Fire Lord Sozin at the beginning of the "March of Civilization", the ship had been retired from active combat over half a century ago. Docked in the remote and sparsely populated Southern Kai Archipelago- the very same island group that crew was in right now- the Ran Fan was officially supposed to lie in dock, an eternal symbol of the pride and grandeur of the Fire Nation.

However, unknown to many of the common people of the Fire Nation, the great warship still served a purpose; the _Ran Fan_ was a gigantic, mobile Imperial Depository. Every few months, the grand old ship would secretly depart from its place of honor and head to Greater Luzon Island. There, it would be loaded down with gold- the payment for combat troops serving in the southern Earth Kingdom- and from there depart towards one of the many naval bases situated on the tiny islands scattered across the ocean halfway between the Fire Nation and the Continent. As the former Crown Prince, Zuko was part of a relatively tiny group of people who knew about the _Ran Fan's_ voyages and the route that it took before it left the waters of the Fire Nation.

The scarred vagrant had spread the word around in certain circles that he had the inside track on the biggest score of all time; he didn't have to wait long to find a group of interested individuals.

At the moment, Zuko was a little worried about how the young warrior's laughter would go over with those individuals. The other members of his crew were all hardened brigands and thieves who would murder their own grandmothers without a second thought; the last thing that Zuko wanted was for the Water Tribe warrior to get himself killed for being an annoyance.

After all, the scarred firebender had not even had a chance to use Sokka yet.

"Why are we even bothering with this idiot!"

All eyes flew to Raro; the former prince sighed. He had figured that the hot tempered pirate would be the first to snap. Zuko got into the other man's face.

"We need Li if we're going to pull off this caper," he stated, addressing the Water Tribe warrior by his pseudonym.

"I've done some jobs with him in the past; he's an idea man. If we want to crack the _Ran Fan_ and not die trying, then we're going to need a good scheme. Nobody schemes like Li."

Sokka was a little taken aback by their exchange; at least he knew why he had been recruited.

"I don't know what we were thinking letting you bring some random asshole into this," Raro snapped back. "We barely trust you! What assurances do we have that he's really as good as you say he is."

The former prince was a second away from delivering his angry retort when, surprisingly, he was cut off by Sokka.

"You've got his word," the alleged criminal mastermind stated, "but, more importantly, you've got _my_ word."

"Not to sound rude, but just who are you?" Our Lady of Ng asked, deciding to air her own concerns on the matter.

"Reputation is everything in our world and you're an unknown. That can mean either of two things; you've never pulled off anything of note or you've never pulled a job at all."

"Yeah, or it could be option three," Sokka replied, deciding to face their paranoia head on.

"None of you have heard of me because I'm _just. That. Good_."

Seeing that he had gotten their attention, the Water Tribe warrior decided to play the mastermind role to the hilt. Puffing out his chest a bit more and adding a self-satisfied sneer to his voice, Sokka dove right into the mix.

"I want to make one thing clear. Compared to me, everyone else in this hideout is an intellectual ant," the warrior stated matter-of-factly.

"Ban," he nodded in the direction of the former prince, "had you guys seek _me_ out. That means that _I'm_ the most important person here; which means none of you are on my level. We're not equals, we're not partners. I'm the only unique fuckin' snowflake in this whole job- the rest of you are just here to do what I say, when I say it, so please…know your places and shut the fuck up….."

A bewildered silence fell over the group. The Water Tribe warrior hoped that he had not just talked himself into a quick and brutal death. Shit, maybe he had taken the act too far; he had to say something else.

"…Except for Chaka. She's cool."

Okay, he had no idea how that was supposed to help; the girl seemed pleased though, so maybe he had managed to keep one friend. Sokka's hopeful thoughts were derailed as he felt a powerful had gripping his neck. Htoo, the big pirate who had been silent up to this point, stood at the other end of that arm, staring into the younger man's blue eyes with barely restrained fury.

"Know my _place_," the pirate ground out, emphasizing the last word with a sharp squeeze to Sokka's windpipe.

"Who are you to tell me what my place is? I was plundering the waters when you were still an itch in your mother's twat. I should snap your neck right now you little…"

"HTOO," Zuko shouted furiously, the flames flaring up at the outburst. "Do not make me…"

The former prince was cut off as the warrior held up a hand, stalling the outburst before it could really get started. The message was clear- _'I've got this.'_

Locking eyes with his captor, Sokka kept his face emotionless.

"You're not going to do anything to me; you're not that stupid."

"And what makes you think that I won't?"

"I think it's because you recognize your own limitations," Sokka responded calmly.

"You've got an objective and you've got the resources to pull off the job, but what you don't have is a plan. The _Ran Fan's_ coming, but none you are smart enough to figure out how to get knickers off that bitch; that's why you've got me. Because I'm smart enough; I can do what you can't. Kill me and you piss away more money than you could ever imagine."

The Water Tribe warrior could see all of the emotions stirring inside of Htoo working themselves out across his broad face. Rage and wounded pride at war with greed and common sense; the big pirate really wanted to hurt Sokka. But he couldn't fight the logic that the younger man delivered. Sokka smirked wickedly as he saw the forces of greed win out over anger.

"Still wanna' snap my neck?"

The big pirate's face returned to the impassive mask that it previously wore, but the fury in his eyes still shone through the dark.

"Watch your step," Htoo growled before roughly shoving his way past the Water Tribe warrior, Raro following close behind on his heels.

The rest of the group let them go; wordlessly watching as they left the cavern. Sokka fought back the urge to rub the sore spots on his neck and instead refocused his attention onto those who remained. He would have to keep an eye on those two; the younger one clearly wasn't Zuko's biggest fan and the warrior had just managed to get on the bad side of the elder. Sokka fought down the urge to sigh; he had well and truly found himself in a tricky situation this time.

* * *

_Chomp, Slurp_…*belch*…_Chomp, Chomp_…

The sound of poor manners rang through the night.

It had taken Zuko some time to amble his way up the narrow path that ran around the monolithic stone pillar which served as the pirate's hideaway. When he reached the top, he found Sokka munching away on a bowl of shellfish that the Lady of Ng had given him after he wouldn't shut up about being hungry. The former prince didn't even try to disguise his presence as he moved towards the warrior; Zuko had been waiting for a chance to talk to him anyway.

"You realize that you are living up to practically every single pirate stereotype in existence, don't you?"

"Come again," the former prince asked.

Sokka- he had started to refer to himself in his head by his alias, Li- looked over his shoulder, lips still wrapped around the now hollow shell of a Rock Crab leg.

"A secret hideout in a cave, underneath a giant rock, lying just off the coast of a sleepy island in an out-of-the-way sea lane? That just reeks of cliché."

Zuko- or, more properly, Ban- walked over to the where the other young man was eating and sat down on a rock next to him. The two sat in silence for a while, watching the pacific surface of the moonlight ocean, their company neither companionable nor awkward.

"You don't think that you're criminal mastermind act was a little overboard," the scarred one asked, his eyes still directed towards the silent ocean.

"Maybe I _was_ trying too hard," the Water Tribe warrior allowed. "It's not like I know how somebody like that is supposed to act."

He took the shell of a freshly gutted crustacean and tossed it off of the top of the cliff and down into the sea before turning his head towards his scarred companion.

"By the way, fuck you very much for once again coming into my life from out of nowhere and complicating things."

The former prince was unmoved by the insult. "I'm not trying to be your friend; I'm trying to get you on my side because we can help each other. We have the same goal."

Sokka quirked a quizzical eyebrow, the statement's apparent sincerity surprising him.

"It's true," Zuko insisted. "It's the reason why I'm in the Fire Nation right now. It's the reason why I was searching for the Avatar and it's the reason why I found you."

"Yeah, about that," the warrior asked. "I know we agree to save the backstories for later, but I've got to ask; why even come to the Fire Nation?"

"Same reason you did, I suspect," the scarred one said. "Who would be stupid enough to try to hide in his enemy's own house?"

Plus there was the fact that Azula, still livid over Zuko slipping from her grasp, was still in Ba Sing Se overseeing the suppression of Earth Kingdom resistance and scouring the length and breadth of the land trying to find a trace of her wayward brother. The fugitive prince was counting on his knowledge of his pursuer to keep him safe, at least for a while. He knew Azula and the princess was a person who operated on pure, cold logic; following his escape from Ba Sing Se, she would naturally think that he would flee into the vast wilderness of the Earth Kingdom and try to disappear. After all, fleeing to the Fire Nation made no rational sense; it was too long a journey and too dangerous a prospect to sneak into the home islands. It would never occur to her- he hoped- that he would try to head back home.

Also, though he had managed to go toe-to-toe with his sister, Zuko couldn't shake the feeling he was alive right due to luck rather than skill. He would never admit this to anyone else, but he was in no hurry to go another round with Azula.

"Anyway, we don't actually have to go through with this job," the scarred prince stated. "I don't care about the _Ran Fan_ and we've both got bigger agenda's than this. It won't be any trouble to snatch a boat and sneak away; just tell me when you're ready and we can go."

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere," Sokka stated matter-of-factly.

Now, it was Zuko's turn to be surprised. He had expected the Water Tribe warrior to immediately want to reunite with his friends.

"Why?"

Sokka looked at him like he was stupid. "I just heard you tell a story about the biggest, fattest, most gut-bustingly rich treasure ship to ever sail the seas and you really expect me to just walk away from a chance to steal it?"

Golden eyes examined the warrior's dusky skinned face, naked suspicion evident. Sokka did not strike him as the greedy type.

"No way; it's got to be something deeper than that."

The young warrior rolled his eyes and focused his attention back on the sea, but did not say anything else, his whole demeanor indicating that he was no longer interested in carrying on the conversation. Despite what had happened between them in from that time in Ba Sing Se to now, Sokka was still not ready to trust the former prince. Zuko had done enough to demonstrate that he was no longer an enemy, but Sokka was not quite ready to call him an ally.

No… he was going to keep a few cards close to his chest.

To his credit, the scarred one decided not to push the issue. The important thing was that the Water Tribe warrior- though not completely trusting of him yet- seemed to agree that they were both moving towards the same end. That would have to be good enough for now.

The two young men stared out into the moonlit night, bodies unmoving.

"The _Ran Fan's_ going to be tough."

Pause.

"I know."

"You'd better have one hell of a plan."

"…I might."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The morning sun has been seen as a source of inspiration and hope for centuries. Across all cultures the birth of a new day signifies a time absolutely flush with possibilities and opportunities to shape the future into something much better than the past. As the first shining rays of morning land upon the slumbering brows of the artisans, philosophers and architects of the world, the pillars of human civilization rise to challenge nature and push the progress of their species forward.

As the first shining rays of morning found a certain Water Tribe Warrior/criminal mastermind still seated on top of a rock overlooking a lonely sea in the southern reaches of the Fire Nation, they found a young man settled in an increasingly foul mood.

Barring a pair of cat naps that had lasted little more than half an hour, Sokka had been up all night wracking his brain trying to come up with a way for the pirate group to capture a ship the Size of the _Ran Fan_. Left alone with thoughts and the balmy night- now morning- air, the young warrior had sketched out over a dozen plans of attack over the past several hours and, for one reason or another, had dismissed them. No matter how he tried coming at the problems inherent in trying to hijack a ship like the Ran Fan, he kept coming up with big fat failures, ideas and plots dismissed as suicidal/foolhardy/idiotic almost as soon as they were devised.

This was all turning out to be a much tougher nut to crack than he had originally thought. Despite devoting a great deal of his rather sizable intellect to the problem, he was still coming up with blanks. Just how were the pirates, in wooden ships with armaments which were vastly unsuited to confronting an iron vessel, supposed to even make the _Ran Fan_ slow down, let alone halt it in its tracks? The old battleship was bigger; it's machine driven engines would allow it to easily outpace the sail driven pirate vessels; even though it was decommissioned from combat, it was a big boat and any boarding party sent by his side to hijack the thing would likely be outnumbered.

Most people would say that the whole endeavor was beyond impossible; it was comically retarded.

"C'mon. You're supposed to be the idea guy! Think of something," Sokka muttered to himself.

Scowling against the increasingly harsh light of the risen sun, the Water Tribe warrior wondered if he wasn't just wasting his time. What Zuko had earlier said about slipping away from the pirate's and their grand operation was starting to look increasingly attractive. Sokka wasn't one to just give up on things and he really, _**really**_, wanted a piece of the treasure-trove that was sitting inside of the hull of the old battleship. The Water Tribe warrior however, was also extremely pragmatic. If he was unable to think of anything soon he would just have to cut his losses and jump ship on his plans for the gol-…

"Wait."

Muttering to himself as an idea, a workable idea, suddenly- finally- appeared in his head. Okay, maybe it wasn't so much "_workable_" as it was "_hypothetically more possible than the crap that he had been thinking up before_" but the young mastermind wasn't about to quibble over such things. After all, he was finally making progress. Now that he had an idea about how to halt the Ran Fan, he could start checking to see if the idea was even possible.

Hopping up onto his feet, raised his arms above his head and indulged in a good, long stretch, listening to his bones crackle and his joints rolling into place. Yawning against the fatigue of a night spent with far too little rest, the young warrior was hardly surprised to find that he was feeling a surge of energy right now- he had long since learned that shots of adrenaline were usually traveling companions with his epiphanies. Rubbing some of the feeling back into his poor, cramping buttcheeks, Sokka quickly made his way to the crevice which would take him back down into the catacombs of the pirate haven. He had work to do; his first stop would have to be the quartermasters of the various ships- they could tell him if they had the necessary materials for his plan to work or not. Then he would have to-

'_Grrumblelerrrr_'

The Water Tribe warrior looked down at his stomach.

"Oo-kay. Quartermaster's second. Food comes first."

* * *

'_Do you know how much I loved you?_'

Her whispers leaked softly into his ear; she was using _that_ tone of voice. It was the one she always had after they had finished their usual coupling and they lay, spent, sweating and clinging to the afterglow. Back then, it had always sent shiver's up his spine; her seductive, teasing voice was one of the few things capable of penetrating the hardened shell of malice and anger that had built up around his soul.

'_I really don't think you did_,' she said, a tiny hint of regret coloring her voice. '_I know that I couldn't completely wrap my head around the idea. Someone else actually loving me, I mean._'

Zuko could almost feel her hands as they traced the designs of the tattoo on his back, ruffled his hair, nuzzled and planted small kisses at the base of his neck. He wanted to reach back and take her into his arms, envelop her within himself and never let go of her again.

But he couldn't; he could not turn himself around because there was nothing there! Jin was former prince could feel his rage flaring; of course you were worthy to be loved! Jin, you were **good**! You were **pure**! **True**!

'_And you, you seemed even more screwed up than I was! I couldn't believe there was somebody else out there with even more baggage than me._'

Jin was dead. She had been for a while now, and yet he couldn't divorce himself from her presence. She went right on talking, as she usually did. Zuko wanted her to shut up; to go away and stop haunting him. But he also desperately wanted her to stay; to keep talking to him, to keep jabbering on about anything and everything, to not let him be without her for even a second longer.

'_But then, that's probably why we clicked like we did. We both had so much hate inside of us that, when we met, we kind of bonded over it, y'know. Outside that room, the world and everything bad about it existed, but when we were together…mmh! What was it I used to say? You were my…_'

"Safe…place."

Unbidden, tears welled up in the former prince's eyes as he spoke the phrase through ragged breaths. His voice broke, overcome as the emotions which he had become so adept at repressing broke through his defenses. She had loved him.

She had loved _**HIM**_!

As worthless and pitiable as he was she had wanted him. And in the end, he failed her. Just as he had failed Uncle; just as he had failed Mother. He had lost everything he cared for; _every_one he loved and had been left with nothing.

'_I just need you to know that I don't blame you. My death wasn't your fault. I don't blame you.'_

That's right...

It was the dim spark of truth that cut through his misery. He had gotten so much wrong in his life; he'd screwed so many things up and laid waste to his life with his own hands. But this- she- wasn't one of them.

It was not his fault! He hadn't lost anything; _he_ hadn't lost his mother or his uncle or his lover. They had been taken from him! All that he had wanted was to be left alone, and yet his father couldn't let him have even that; he had been banished, he had been disfigured- was he really deserving of more punishment. Had his transgression in the war room all those years ago really warranted the suffering he was forced to endure now?

"Fuck that," he spoke bitterly.

The Red Haze which was always settled just behind his eyes stirred. It rose and showed him things; beautiful things.

The Fire Lord cowering at his feet, his nose smashed and bent at an unnatural angle, looking up at the man he had sired- at the man who was about to kill him- and loosing his bladder in fright. The entirety of the Fire Nation capital swallowed up by flames and everyone, the syncophants and the soldiers and the bureaucrats, the servants and the slaves and the concubines screaming for their lives as their flesh melted from their muscles and their dying prayers went unanswered. Ty Lee, her face bruised and bleeding, crying as he pinned her down beneath his weight, a hand around her neck. He reaches down towards her crotch; she can see what's coming but there's nothing she can do to stop it. He wants to…

"Wait…wait," spoke to himself, the act of talking forcing him out of the disturbing place his mind was leading.

The former prince shook his head violently. He shop up from his bed and rubbed his temples, willing the Red Haze to recede back into its usual dormancy. Just what the hell was he thinking? A cold sweat quickly formed on his body as he realized exactly what he had been fantasizing about just a second ago. He shook his wooly head again, trying to physically force the more… extreme images out of his mind. He wanted his revenge; and when he got it he was going to savor it like a fine cut of meat.

But Zuko wasn't going to go _that_ far.

"Where the hell did all of that come from," the scarred firebender muttered to himself.

Those couldn't have been his honest thoughts- well, excepting the one about his father- it was like he was being overshadowed by another, more malevolent presence. But that, of course, was impossible; he was in control of himself. He just needed to control his rage; he needed to stay active. When he didn't have anything to occupy himself, all he could do was dwell on the things he had lost. Dwelling made him angry- made him hear things; imagine things that shouldn't be. It took the young firebender a second to realize that he was sweating- more than that, he was soaked through his clothes.

Zuko's perpetual frown got a little bit deeper. He hated the sticky feeling of damp clothes, but it wasn't like he had anything else to wear. Peeling his top off, the former prince tossed the rough garment onto his bed and hurriedly left his room, fleeing the scene of his disturbing thoughts. As he was leaving, he almost ran headlong into Sokka, who was apparently hurrying into his room to come to see him. Hair-trigger reflexes and dumb luck were all that kept the two young men from ending up in a tangled heap on the ground.

"Whoa Ban, where are you heading in such a hurry," Sokka asked, referring to his scarred counterpart's assumed identity.

"Nowhere important Li," Zuko replied in kind.

The former prince could see that the Water Tribe warrior was excited about something; smug self-satisfaction was written all over his face and he was practically radiating energy.

"You got an idea," the former prince stated.

"You know me so well," Sokka replied sarcastically. "I came to get you. I'm about to make my announcement to the group, give'em the rundown of the plan."

"You've got an actual plan? That was pretty fast."

"Hey, what can I say, genius can strike at the weirdest of times. And anyway…"

Sokka leaned in towards Zuko.

"I'm on a timetable."

The Water Tribe warrior's normally warm blue eyes took on a glacial hue as he locked orbs with the scarred prince's. Zuko was momentarily taken aback at the unspoken threat in the younger man's look but wasn't allowed much time to address it as Sokka pulled away and beckoned for his adversary-turned-ally to follow his lead. The scarred one followed behind but mulled over the last few moments. What had that look been all about? As far as he knew, Zuko hadn't done anything to make the Water Tribe warrior especially suspicious or hostile to him. Then again, maybe he was thinking about things too hard; sometimes a look was just a look.

It didn't take long for the duo to get the large common space in the cavern where the entire compliment of pirates was assembled and waiting for their resident mastermind's announcement. The former prince was, apparently, one of the last people to find out about this meeting.

"Wish me luck," the Water Tribe warrior spoke over his shoulder before straightening up and striding arrogantly towards the head of the mob.

He seemed to be going out of his way trying to look like the biggest dick possible.

Zuko settled into the rest of the crowd of assembled pirates, greeting no one and receiving none in return. Even though he had been the father of the plot on the Ran Fan, he was still an outsider amongst these people; an unknown entity whose motivations were mysterious and whose loyalties were equally enigmatic. He didn't warrant anything besides what passed for the bare minimum of courtesy amongst this villainous lot. Making himself as comfortable as possible, the former prince settled in to watch Sokka's performance.

As a person born into royalty, Zuko was very well acquainted with the art of presentation. The primary principle was the same for the august as it was for the humble; it was all about making an impression. As a child, he had been taught that every action, every movement- no matter how slight- had to be calculated to inspire awe in your audience. Self-aggrandizement; it was why provincial governors had to import the ice that chilled their wine from the North Pole and it was why a Fire Lord had to "discipline" his only son before the entire royal entourage. Impressions…awe…power…

Make a good show of things and you'd have the mob eating out of your hand and hanging onto your every suggestion, no matter how ludicrous.

Zuko had never been much good at the art of public speaking- his sister was, of course, a natural- but he had seen enough presentations in his life to be a fair judge of the effectiveness of any given one. And he had to give it to Sokka; the young warrior definitely knew how to whip up an atmosphere. From his space amidst dozens of pirate bodies, Zuko observed as Sokka's lanky bantam figure swaggered back and forth for his audience, demanding everyone's attention without having to say so much as a word. After sending a sweeping gave over the audience- presumably to make sure that he had captured every eye and had been lent at least one ear from everyone in the room- Sokka abruptly halted in his tracks and rounded upon the crowd. Dramatically flinging his arms out to either side of his body, he asked in a loud voice…

"Who here wants to be incredibly wealthy?"

A confused silence fell over the assembled brigands; Zuko snorted in amusement. He could hear various voices around him chattering, asking one another just what the young pup in front of them was going on about- the Water Tribe warrior's attempt at humor had clearly gone over a great number of these people's heads. The former prince could see that, for his part, Sokka seemed genuinely disappointed that nobody had answered what would, under most circumstances, be a rhetorical question.

"Nobody? Really? Nobody at all?"

Down in front one brave, simple soul tentatively raised up a hand to indicate that, yes, he did indeed want obnoxious amounts of gold. The young warrior wasted no time stepping towards the man, grasping his hand and shaking it vigorously.

"Thank you for having the courage to answer my totally-not-rhetorical question. You can go back to listening now, I'll take it from here my boy," Sokka said, dismissively waving away a man who was clearly old enough to be his father.

Sighing melodramatically, the Water Tribe warrior fixed the crowd with a critical stare, as if he were a merchant reassessing the teeth of a new milk-mare.

"Okay, I'm just going to assume that everyone else besides me and my new friend over there wants to get crazy loot," he said, not bothering to hide his annoyance at the pirates for not playing along with him.

"Now, as we all know, the Ran Fan is a-chug-chug-chugging its merry little way through these waters carrying the salaries of our brave boys fighting the good fight overseas and grinding the lesser races beneath their heels. Unfortunately for the troops, their whore and booze budget is about to take a serious hit."

Sokka paused as a collective chuckle arose from the audience, the earthy joke in his last line going over well with the crowd. Letting the good humor die down a bit, the young warrior began his pacing again, this time adding a contemplative hand on his chin.

"But now that we are determined to rob the shit out of that ship, we start running into problems; I mean really, how are we supposed to get the goodies out of the Ran Fan in the first place?"

The mastermind rounded back onto the crowd.

"Surely this thought has crossed the minds of the more intelligent ones amongst you already; the Ran Fan is no dingy. In fact, I think that it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a big ass ship! Commonsense would tell you that it's impossible."

"But…"

At this point the Water Tribe warrior but special emphasis on that 'but', packing as much melodrama as he could into one syllable; Zuko could see his peers leaning in with interest. Some were transfixed, hanging onto every word that came dripping out of Sokka's lips.

"We're not going to listen to commonsense because _fuck that guy! _I have a way."

"And what would that be," a gruff voice shouted from the crowd.

Zuko didn't even bother to turn in the direction of the disturbance; leave it to Raro to make his presence felt. The gruff young pirate chieftain's unwanted interruption had done a good job of spoiling the mood that Sokka had managed to build and the young warrior looked none too pleased at the interference. Crossing his arms in front of him, Sokka looked across the crowd, directly at the disturbance and answered him.

"By blowing a hole in the side of the ship."

That blunt statement from the young warrior shut everybody up. Even the former prince had to quirk his non-disfigured eyebrow in surprise. Hadn't Sokka just said that he wanted the money? As was becoming habit, Zuko could not follow Sokka's logic at all. Not that it mattered very much to the scarred firebender- the only reason he was still sticking around was to indulge his Water Tribe counterpart. Still, if the hushed and sometimes not so hushed conversations around him were any indication, plans which weren't readily understood were not very popular amongst the rank and file scalawags.

Was the lad insane? What about all that gold? What were they supposed to do when the fucking boat sank, trawl around the seafloor looking for treasure chests and single silver pieces? Inevitably, somebody asked the question that was on everyone's mind.

"Are you crazy?"

Rather than shying away from the questioning of his sanity, the young warrior adopted an even more smug look and shot back.

"Damn right I'm crazy. Crazy like an otter-fox!"

Zuko had seen palace pampered pit-peacocks strut and preen with half of the arrogance and irreverence that Sokka was somehow managing to summon up from whatever hidden depths lay within his soul.

"Okay, it looks like I've got to explain things to you all," the young warrior said.

"You all look like you've been doing this pirate thing for a while; some of you have probably been at it for longer than I've been alive. So you should know that we've got no chance to capture a ship that is both bigger and faster than our own unless we can take it by surprise."

Turning away from one section of the crowd, Sokka faced down another.

"Now, our ships haven't got the armament to take out or even threaten a naval warship, but the resident quartermasters tell me that we're carrying just enough of the stuff that goes '_a-splode_' to construct a pretty decent mine."

Raro's derisive voice flew out over the noise of the crowd.

"That's ridiculous! No mine we make will be able to breach the armor of a Navy ship!"

"Y'know you're probably right," Sokka shot back mockingly. "Gee willikers, it'd be impossible for us to slap together something that would breach the hull of a _modern, combat worthy_ ship."

The young warrior looked forlorn for a second before brightening up.

"Oh, wait, that's right! The Ran Fan is neither _modern_ nor _combat worthy_. It's a fucking floating fossil you jackass! Do you really think that over 70 years of metal fatigue aren't going to have any kind of effect at all?"

Raro had to be restrained from going down and cutting the arrogant mastermind into chum for his blatant disrespect; the whole scene was highly amusing to one scarred spectator in particular. Sokka, without missing a beat, got right back to where he left off.

"Now, some of you are probably wondering about what we're going to do about the gold; breaching the hull solves the problem of the ship being able to outrun us, but it makes the job of getting the goodies out of the jar a bit harder."

The Water Tribe warrior paused and sighed. When he began again, his tone was all seriousness; his voice carried a clear message with no condescension or coddling. He was getting to the serious part- the part where the success of his entire plan hinged- everybody in the room had better listen up. And for a wonder, all of the pirates actually did come to attention.

It took a second for the former prince to recognize it, but when he did he was left with a newfound respect- and a little more wariness- of the Water Tribe warrior. A few minutes ago the pirates had been on the verge of outright rebellion, stirred to anger by the arrogant words of the young stranger in front of them. And yet now, that rebellion had transformed into quiet consideration.

"I'm not going to lie to you," Sokka began heavily.

"Some of that booty is going to the bottom of the ocean. What is essential is that we work quickly and get as much of it off of the Ran Fan and onto our ships as we possibly can before we have to abandon ship."

As the Water Tribe warrior began laying out the finer points of the ship takeover- about how one group of pirates would deal with the crew while the rest would be tasked with gathering the gold- and while most of the cutthroats were climaxing at the thought of all that gold, Zuko stayed silent. His mind was in another, far darker place.

The blood red haze that hovered at the back of his mind was stirring; it was asking him questions. Was this really the best course of action? The scarred prince looked around him, around the dirty and mange ridden faces and came to a cold realization. Every single person in this room knew his face.

_**Every. **_

_**Single. **_

_**One.**_

The red haze whispered lightly in his ear; _you're alright now, but what about later? After its all done, what then?_

After all, Zuko couldn't expect to control anyone's actions after all was said and done. This was potentially going to be the biggest act of piracy in history, the stuff legends were made of. It would only be natural for one of the people here to brag about their participation in the pillaging of the Ran Fan; he could see it all, now that the haze was painting the picture for him.

They'd talk about the incredible caper that made them rich; they'd brag about their role in the operation, the difficulty in restraining the crew and getting the gold off of the sinking ship; and they would talk about the enigmatic stranger with the scarred face who had first come to their bosses with the plan in the first place. All it would take was for the wrong person to overhear that story and Zuko's precious cloak of anonymity would be swept away.

What would happen to him if the Fire Lord found out he was in the Fire Nation; worse, what would happen to him if his sister found out that he was in the Fire Nation? The former prince could feel his guts twisting into sailor's knot's at the thought. Of course, a rational region of Zuko's mind chided him for being paranoid. Even if someone from this operation was captured and interrogated by Fire Nation authorities, the Fire Nation's former first son was just one more face out of many. The chances that somebody would link Ban the vagrant to Zuko of the Fire Nation were infinitesimal. Logically, Zuko was worrying over nothing.

Still…he had experienced several improbable coincidences in his life. Meeting Jet and the Freedom Fighters; that earthquake which happened at just the right time that allowed him to escape Jade Passage; those two events plus a litany of other occurrences were proof that the improbable could happen.

And Zuko figured that, with his luck, he could expect the worst to happen this time.

The red haze helped to reveal his folly. It was all so clear now; he had made a serious mistake- revealed himself to too many people. He could maybe trust a few of the people in here to be smart and lucky enough to escape the authorities, but he couldn't count on everybody. No…

There could be no loose ends.

The scarred vagrant swept his eyes around the room, taking in the faces of everyone around him. His mind was resolved- each and every one of them would have to.

'_This is going to take some doing_,' the former prince thought to himself.

Deep down in the red, beneath everything, something grinned.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The soft undulations of a ship, bobbing up and down, up and down, up and down on the waves of the ocean always tends to bring up old memories in those who have spent their lives near the sea. Two such young me stood shoulder to shoulder against the rails of a pirate ship, silently awaiting the giant form of their pray to come cutting through the night. For Sokka, the feeling of being back on the waves brought with it a stir of emotions, both the bitter and the sweet.

Zuko... he just had the bitter.

As the Water Tribe warrior stared off into the still dark horizon-the light of dawn still an hour, maybe two, away- he was transported back to his childhood in the Southern Water Tribe. His father and uncles taking him along on his first fishing voyage; Gran-Gran and the den mothers of the tribe instructing him in the finer points of tying the tackle lines and weaving up the knots on your net so that it wouldn't come apart in the rough waters; the cold memory of the days after the black ships came.

How his father had snapped the flimsy excuse for a spear he had hastily crafted out of an old fishing pole, grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and tossed him off of the departing warrior's ships.

_'Too young to fight'_; a boy had no place with men.

The scarred prince recalled the moment he became the man he was today. The feeling of half of his face awash in anguish as his skin melted like wax. Applause; reverent, enthusiastic, and polite.

_'A fine Agni Kai your highness.' _

_'Your form was 'impeccable, truly marvelous.'_

_'This punishment is all the young master deserves for such cowardice...' _

There was the nearly obsolete naval vessel where he had been taken, half-dead and nearly maddened by the pain. How he was told through fevered vision and infected mind that he was no longer welcome in his own country; no longer welcome in his father's presence. The storms which tossed him around like bug trapped some sadistic god-child's tin cup; the nausea; the knowledge that if he were to throw himself into the sea, no one besides his uncle would care to throw him a line. The sea... always the sea.

"Not long now," Sokka said, breaking the chilly silence. "You nervous?"

The scarred firebender looked at his dusky skinned counterpart, shooting him a quizzical look.

"No," he said flatly. "Are _you_?"

"Uh, yeah! This is kind of a big deal; it's only natural to be a little bit nervous."

"Especially when the lives of everyone involved is hinging on an insane plan that you made," the firebender quipped, taking the opportunity to needle the other youth a little bit.

Sokka gave the firebender a sour look. "Y'know, you are _very_ unlikeable."

"Sorry if I hurt your feelings," the former prince-clearly not in the least bit sorry- responded.

"But I'll say it again. This plan of yours is insane and it relies just as much on luck as it does on good planning. I'm not trying to die here _Li_."

The Water Tribe warrior gave Zuko a look cold enough to kill most minor species rodents.

"You're not the only one who's got bigger fish on their '_to fry_' list, scarface," Sokka said, before turning back towards the horizon.

"Once we're done with the business at hand, then we can get to _our_ thing. For now, how about we just stay focused pirating this ship, stealing this gold, and getting out of here in one piece; that alright with you?"

The former prince looked for a second like he wanted to say something else, but eventually only gave a reluctant grunt in response to Sokka's question. The Water Tribe warrior was perceptive enough to notice that his scarred counterpart was preoccupied by something, and his gut was telling him that whatever was, it didn't have to do with their impending date with the _Ran Fan_. While Sokka was tempted to ask what was on the firebender's mind, the question hadn't even gotten the chance to form on his lips before he was cut off by Zuko.

"Look's like the show's about to start."

Snapping his head away from the former prince, the young warrior peered into the darkened horizon. At first he couldn't make out anything against the overwhelming coat of black, but after straining his eyes for a little longer he found that he could _just_ make out a shape approaching; right on the bearing that Zuko had said it would be.

"That's got to be her," Sokka said, the beginnings of his adrenaline rush starting to creep into his speech.

"By the way, how are you able to see so well in the dark?"

When he didn't get a response, the young warrior turned to his side and saw that the scarred firebender was nowhere in sight; he'd been abandoned. Sokka shrugged his shoulders and sucked his teeth at the mild slight.

Fuck'im. It was almost go time.

The young warrior pushed himself off from the railings of the ship. Unsheathing the black blade slung across his back, Sokka reared back his head and roared at the top of his lungs into the night sky.

"IT'S TIME TO MAKE SOME CRAAAZYYY MONEY!"

* * *

Banzu's jaws creaked open to emit a deep, hollow yawn. The deck of the grand ship _Ran Fan_ rolled gently beneath his feet as the great ship cut its way through these tranquil waters. A ship the size of the Ran Fan required a fairly large number of lookouts and spotters to make sure that the vessel did not run into any unforeseen obstacles or hazards. Tonight, the father of three and grandfather of spirits knew how many more found himself as one of them.

The old campaigner could feel the weight of his years bearing down on his shoulders and he tried his best to stay awake. It wasn't easy; it had been over 25 years since he had last been in uniform. A veteran- most men in the Fire Nation his age were- Banzu had served in the Imperial Navy. Back then, the Earth Kingdom still had a navy that actually put to sea and fought instead of shrinking away and hiding and the old man had found himself involved in some of the most vicious sea battles in the war's history.

The Battle of the Straight of Malka; the Long Pig; the landing at Wayside Island; the Battle in the God's Cauldron; he fought in them all and somehow survived them all, earning himself a well-deserved discharge with full honors and a fat pension. Banzu had gone back to his hometown and did his very best to try and forget about everything that happened to him. But then, three summers ago, he and a few of the other non-mangled veterans in his town had received call ups; their Fire Lord needed them again.

Banzu huffed at the memory of the day he received that important looking notice from the Naval Ministry courier that had shown up on his doorstep with notice that declared he was to report for a "special assignment". While the old man could not honestly say that he was _happy_ to be back in uniform, he did feel somewhat important that he could still be of some use to the nation.

The team that was in charge of this quadrant of the Ran Fan had drawn lots to see which of their number would have to go topside while the rest got to stay in bed. It was just Banzu's bad luck that he had drawn the short straw and had to go out on watch; hardly any of the men serving on this ship were spring chickens, so it was a pretty big deal deciding who got stuck with the watch job. The old man grumbled a bit, but straightened himself out quickly; despite his advanced age, he was still a soldier and he still had duties to perform.

He shrugged and wriggled his shoulders, trying to readjust the feel of his slightly too big armor. Feeling the weight in his eyelids beginning to be a bit too much for his willpower to support, Banzu reached up and, taking a single strand of his graying beard in his calloused fingers forcefully yanked it out of his face. Swearing against the sharp sting but once again back up to full lucidity, the sentry resumed his half-dazed watch of the surrounding ocean.

'_I am much too old to be doing this_,' he thought for about the thousandth time that night.

He had already put in his required time in the Fire Lord's military; he sneezed violently, a tiny bit of snot exiting his nose. Whipping it away in mild disgust, Banzu cracked the bones in his neck.

"When this is over, I'm going to have a nice, long…"

**KA-**_**BOOM!**_

Banzu felt the deck disappear from beneath his feet as the concussion from the deafening blast picked him up and flung him several feet before slamming him unceremoniously onto the floor. Long suppressed combat experience bubbled up from the dark recesses where they had been stored for over twenty years. His mind still muddled from the explosion, Banzu hoisted himself onto his feet just in time to observe the grappling hooks attach to the guardrails of the _Ran Fan_. Moving on raw instinct, the old veteran stumbled on unsteady feet.

Through his muddled hearing he could already hear the shouts of his comrades and the rough profanities of whoever it was that was trying to attack them. Banzu struggled to get his wits about him; he had to do something! They might be on him at any second!

A piercing cry tore through the night, accompanied by the telltale _**fwoosh**_ of flames being discharged. There, to the left!

Knees knocking, the old man spun as quickly as his old, tired bones could towards the sound, his vision finally returning to normal. He saw a man rushing towards him, holding a blade in his hand. It was a black as the night sky; he almost couldn't see it. Banzu tried to get into his stance, tried to summon up the fire that he hadn't had much use for in decades and use it against the man rushing to kill him.

The old man had just managed to raise a spark when his killer appeared face to face with him. Banzu's eyes widened in dull disbelief,

'_Why_, _he's nothing but a boy_,' crossed his mind, his surprise so great that he was, initially, only dimly aware that the boy's sword had found a space between his armor and was buried several inches into his abdomen.

Without sparing him more than an extra glance, the kid casually pushed the mortally wounded Banzu aside, toppling him to the ground. The old soldier did not even feel himself falling through the space to the ground, but he did feel it when he finally hit the deck. Banzu could feel the life draining out of him, quickly; the wound in his side didn't even hurt that much, which was pretty damn weird. He had been wounded numerous times before and they had all hurt like a bastard.

Maybe the difference this time was that he wasn't supposed to get up from this one.

Almost as soon as it had been born, the old man forced the thought from his mind; he had a family, dammit! He had grandchildren to look after; he had to keep up his sons' farms and shops until they returned from the war; he was much too busy to die. Banzu gritted his teeth and struggled to push himself off of his back, pure stubbornness lending him strength that his body should not have had.

His struggles were put to an end as the tip of a black blade swung down, slashing through his throat and cleaving his Adam's Apple into two neat halves. Banzu gurgled for a moment before his eyes rolled back in his head and his body gave out beneath him.

The boy who killed him spared him a fleeting look of mild disgust before moving on.

* * *

From his place on the deck of one of the marauding ships, Zuko could hear and see the activity going on above him on the deck of the Ran Fan. All around him, cutthroats and scoundrels of all shapes and sizes were chomping at the bit to get aboard the great ship and get in on the fun. The former prince's perpetual scowl deepened, his contempt for these people- his "comrades"- becoming more pronounced.

Nothing except a bunch of bloodthirsty idiots.

"The boys seem to be enjoying themselves."

Zuko started in surprise and turned towards the familiar voice speaking at his shoulder. He quickly came eye to eye with the cold gaze of the pirate Raro.

"Why aren't you already up there," the scarred one asked.

"What? Is my being here making you nervous; what's it to you when or if I get on that ship," the pirate asked, raw suspicion dripping from every last word.

"Nothing you do matters to me," Zuko responded evenly, turning his gaze away from his adversary. "It's just that the wanton slaughter of a bunch of pensioners seems like it would be just your style."

The pirate stared daggers into Zuko, clearly not amused by the other young man's insult.

"One day Ban, you and me are going to settle things."

"Whatever," the scarred firebender said, regal aloofness sticking to the word. He didn't have time to deal with this idiot.

Turning away from Raro, Zuko started to make his way to the other end of the deck, calling out over his shoulder,

"Now, if you don't mind, _I_ have to go not be useless."

The firebender smirked to himself, imagining the look on Raro's face. He might not be able to see it, but he could imagine that the pirate would be steaming over the implied slight. The idiot wore his heart on his sleeve so he was easy to wind up. Turning his attention away from his petty victory, Zuko quickly slipped through the pirates crowding the top deck, scanning the dim night looking for a familiar barrel-chested figure. After a few minutes of searching, the firebender finally spotted his intended target.

"Htoo!"

Zuko's rough bark attracted the captain's attention over the general hustle and bustle of activity on the ship. Closing the distance between the two of them, the smaller firebender looked up into the leathery face of the pirate.

"I need you to help me with something," Zuko said. "Follow me."

Then, without waiting for a response, the younger man brusquely shouldered his way past the pirate captain and proceeded towards the hatch that led to the ship's hold. Zuko could half-hear the captain calling after him, but determinedly ignored the orders to halt and kept on his path down below decks. As the scarred firebender ducked beneath a stray line of rigging he could hear heavy footfalls behind him. Looking over his shoulder, Zuko saw that he was being followed by a pair of random pirates.

"The boss told us to keep an eye on you," the thinner of the two said.

The former prince rolled his eyes. He supposed that it was a little too much to hope for the captain to have come himself. Well, whatever; the result was going to be the same. Zuko motioned for the duo to follow him.

"I left something below; the quicker we get this done, the quicker we can get to the fun stuff."

The two pirates, obviously wanting to get in on the sacking of the Ran Fan, didn't even ask what it was that the scarred firebender wanted to get. Their vacuous expressions revealed that they were not suspicious at all; if Zuko had felt any empathy for these two for what was about to happen to them, it would have evaporated into thin air in that instant. Some people were just too dumb to continue breathing.

Leading the two dimwits down a deck further, the scarred firebender proceeded through the dim bowels of the ship until stopping in front of a nondescript piling of ropes and other nautical odds and ends.

"What idiot threw all of this junk over it," Zuko exclaimed in apparent annoyance. He rounded on the two pirates in his wake.

"Get it out of there," he ordered tersely.

Zuko moved out of the way to allow the grumbling pair the space to unearth the phantom item. From behind them, the scarred firebender drew his knife and calmly, casually, grabbed the hair of the thinner pirate and stuck the blade into his neck in one fluid motion. The other pirate had just enough time to look down at his comrade- flopping on the floor, gurgling on his own blood- and look up at his attacker before he was stuck in his heart. Looking down stupidly at the dagger that seemed to be growing out of his chest, the pirate fell back on his haunches, stone dead, his head lolling to the side.

Kicking the corpse and the soon-to-be corpse out of his way, Zuko dug through the remaining junk until he found what he was looking for; a cask of leftover blasting powder that he had swiped after Sokka had completed his mine. Using his heel to knock out the cork which kept the deadly substance inside, the banished prince hefted the cask beneath his arm and walked to the stairs leading up to the upper deck. Upon reaching the stairs, Zuko tipped the cask over, letting loose a steady stream of the acerbic black power. Wrinkling his nose against the unusually strong smell- he'd have to ask Sokka about what kind of extra stuff he put in there- the firebender methodically inched his way backwards, leaving a consistent line of black powder.

Continuing until he felt his backside hitting the one of the hulls of the ship, the scarred firebender set the cask of powder onto the floor. Making sure not to step into the line he had just made, Zuko climbed halfway up the stair to the deck above before turning around. Summoning a spark with the tip of his finger, he casually flicked it onto the stream of powder. The tiny flame shot through the air, hit its target and instantly sprung to life. The scarred firebender watched was his yellow-orange flame changed into a lively scarlet upon reaction with the powder.

That reaction lent further credence to Zuko's theory that Sokka had put something special into the blasting powder; he had thought that mine had been much more powerful than it had any right being. And the fire that he had just lit was crackling and burning merrily; a little too merrily, now that he thought about it.

"_Oh shit!_"

The scarred firebender felt his stomach drop as he noticed just how fast that line of powder was burning. Spinning around, Zuko started running as fast as he could up the stairs, his mind focused on getting overboard before he was blown to the spirit world along with every other person aboard this ship.

Reaching the fresh ocean air of topside, delighted that he had not been blown to bits just yet, Zuko roughly pushed and shoved his way to a side of the ship opposite to where he had placed the powder. Hopping up onto the rails, something possessed the scarred firebender send one last look over the ship. He froze as he came eye to eye with Htoo; the pirate captain's face bore a look of confused rage. He knew; he knew that the scarred stranger had done something, he just didn't know what.

Zuko graced the big man with his seldom-seen smile before giving him a two finger salute. Then, without pausing to see the pirate's reaction, the firebender dived and disappeared beneath the warm, black waters.

* * *

Raro felt like singing. As he slit the throat of some old geezer who had made the mistake of trying to fight back, the pirate prince could hardly keep the joy and excitement inside him from spilling out into childish giggles. But then, why fight it at all?

The giggles came, loud and unabashed. Raro freely allowed the mirth to leak out of him, completely forgetting trivial things such as "appearances".

This was all just so _easy_!

The mine? It had gone off without a hitch!

The sailors aboard the _Ran Fan_? They were even more useless than he had even dared imagine!

He turned to see a pair of pirates emerging from down below, carrying a nondescript wooden crate between them. The looks on their faces mirrored Raro's- they were jubilant; practically orgasmic at the thought of the riches that they were holding in their hands. The young pirate could feel his member hardening; he laughed. This feeling right now was a hundred; no, a thousand times better than being inside any bitch!

Grinning from ear to ear, Raro flicked his sword up onto his shoulder and strode- or rather, swaggered- along the deck, careful to avoid any slippery spots and the bodies that usually came with them. Though he was loathe to admit it, even to himself, as far as plan's went, the one devised by that Li character had proven to be solid gold. Though he was an insufferable pain in the ass, the dusky skinned genius had been as good as his word; he had delivered the Ran Fan, and Raro was going to be a fabulously wealthy man after all of this.

That's not to say that he trusted the stranger any more now than he had before. As a general rule, Raro was suspicious of strangers. He made it a point to know everyone he worked with, whether by experience or by reputation. Having already had one nameless stranger- that scar-faced bastard- show up out of nowhere had set him on edge; getting two had pushed him over that edge. It was even worse that Ban- a figure that nobody in the pirate's information network could say they knew or worked with- and Li- another utterly anonymous figure- somehow knew each other.

Raro just couldn't banish the thought that the pair were plotting something devious from his mind.

Well, whatever the case, he would enjoy himself for now. And when the Ran Fan was well and truly gutted, he would turn his attention to those two-

**KA-**_**BOOM!**_

The sound of the explosion caught the pirate prince off guard, causing him to step into a puddle of deep claret blood. He slipped and fell right on his ass.

"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED," he shouted in fury and confusion.

"It's on fire! Our bloody ship is on fire," someone in his crew said. That single pirate's voice was soon joined by his comrades as many rushed over to see if what was being shouted was true.

Shaking his head to relieve the ringing in his ears, Raro rushed over to the side of _Ran Fan_ to see for himself what had happened to his ship. What he saw when he got there made his heart sink and his blood boil. His ship, the _Ghost Shadow_, was burning. Had it just been the fire, he would not have been in such distress; while fire certainly was dangerous, his crew contained numerous firebenders who could marshal any blaze quickly. But all it took was one glance at the way the _Shadow_ was already listing over to one side to tell him that his ship was going to die a quick death.

Raro looked over to where the second of the pirate's ships, the _Bear-Shark_, was sitting. To his fury, he saw that the that had been left under the command of Chaka and Luzai was making no move to assist the stricken _Ghost Shadow _or the crewmembers now bobbing in the water.

"POPS," Raro shouted down into the murky darkness below, hoping that Htoo was still around to hear him.

All that he heard were the screams of wounded and drowning men, mixing together into one forlorn dirge. Shouting a wordless howl of rage into the night, the pirate flung himself away from the betrayal that was playing out right before his eyes and tore a path towards a hatch that would take him belowdecks. He slashed wildly and indiscriminately at anyone who got in his way.

That wolf-tailed piece of shit! He was going to pay for this.

* * *

"Man, I love it when a plan comes together," Sokka announced, loudly, to no one in particular.

It was not the first time he had uttered that statement this night, and he suspected that it would be far from the last time that he would. Beneath the armored deck of the titanic battleship, in one of the cavernous holds where the gold that fed the Fire Nation war machine was being greedily extracted with all deliberate speed by a mob of pirates, the young man from the Southern Water Tribe felt on top of the world.

While the brigands that he had brought along to do the heavy lifting went about their jobs with gusto, Sokka simply stood off to one side, playfully twirling his knife between his fingers and admiring his handiwork. His sister would probably scold him if she were here. He could see it all now; Katara shaking her head in disapproval and _tut-tutting _at what the shameless robbery taking place before starting into some tired yarn about morality and ethics and seal-kittens or something.

The thought of his baby sister brought a smile to his face. But then it faded.

The old Katara, the one that lived before the disaster in Ba Sing Se, would have scolded him about this. The Katara that existed nowadays… well, he wasn't so sure. The events which took place in the Impenetrable City had obviously affected their entire group; they weren't sure if Aang was going to pull through for a while. Sokka, however, honestly felt that out of all of them, Katara had gotten it the worst. Not only had she lost an eye during the battle, but she had to go through the stress of being the Avatar's sole caregiver. The waterbender put up a good front, but the young warrior could tell that the strain of everything that had happened to them was getting to his sister.

It wasn't as if there had been a huge shift in Katara's personality after Ba Sing Se, but Sokka could tell there was something…off about her. Neither Toph nor Aang noticed it, but he did.

A brother knew such things.

Sighing, the Water Tribe warrior shrugged off his melancholy thoughts about his sister. There was nothing he could do for her right now; nothing except finish his business here and come back to her, to all of them, in one piece.

Besides, HE WAS ROBBING A WARSHIP! He couldn't wait to tell Toph just how awesome this was! He, Sokka son of Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe, had just pulled off the greatest heist in all of recorded history and he'd gotten to deliver a gigantic _fuck you_ to the Fire Nation at the same time.

"Oh yeah, I am the man," Sokka muttered, basking in the radiance of his own badassery.

As much fun as he was having at this moment, the Water Tribe warrior was not completely encased in a bubble of his own self-satisfaction. He still remained acutely aware of the world around him, and it was this perceptiveness which ended up saving his neck.

The sounds of heavy pounding feet on the steel deck off to his left, the direction opposite of where the pirates were manhandling the gold, made him turn his head. He saw that one pirate- Raro- stamping towards him. Sokka noticed the way his chest heaved beneath his breastplate, and even though the lighting in the hold was dim, the young warrior could see that his opposite's face was contorted into an ugly, angry expression. Raro's sword was drawn.

Seeing him, Sokka stopped twirling his knife but didn't leave his relaxed position; he didn't like the way that guy was looking at him. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to stand up, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions.

The Water Tribe warrior held out hopes that, maybe, what he suspected was about to happen would not happen.

Sokka was about to deliver a greeting, but found himself preempted by Raro's wild lunge. The pirate sprung forward, sword tip first, a cry of, "YOU TRAITOROUS CUNT," escaping from his lips.

Taking just enough time to curse his bad luck, the Water Tribe warrior reacted quickly. Fortunately for Sokka, Raro's first thrust was fairly poor- long on power and rage but short on skill. Stepping around the thrust, Sokka slid himself along the outside of Raro's outstretched arm, letting the pirate stumble past him. Collecting himself, the pirate pulled himself up to his full height and spun around to face his opponent, a fresh snarl on his face and a determined glint in his eye.

While Raro was busy snarling, Sokka flipped his knife over into his left hand. Taking a short step forward, the warrior raised his knife hand over his head and whipped his arm forward. The knife traveled the few feet separating the pirate and the warrior in a flash. In an instant, Raro's head snapped backwards and he fell, pole-axed, to the floor with the knife sticking out of his eye. Sokka took a step forward and raked his eyes over the fallen pirate.

"Yep, he's dead alright," he muttered to himself.

Sokka marveled at his good luck with that throw; he had only meant to distract Raro long enough for him to draw his own sword. He hadn't expected to kill him like that. The young warrior suppressed the tremor that ran through the body as the adrenaline that had been fueling his movements died down.

'_What the hell was that all about_,' Sokka thought to himself.

Sure, he'd been kind of a jerk to these people, but why would Raro decide to try and kill him now? Then there was that whole "traitorous cunt" comment. Besides the awkward fact that the pirate had referred to Sokka- another _man_- as a cunt, there was the added accusation of treason. As far as he knew, Sokka hadn't screwed over anybody, so that left…

"Zuko."

He muttered the name like a curse. He had to have had something to do with all of this. That meant only one thing.

Sokka looked sheepishly around the room at the assembled pirates. Everybody, for the moment at least, was frozen in shock; uncertain looks on their dirty faces as they plainly wondered just what the hell was going on. For a moment the young warrior thought he might still be able to talk his way out of the room until the eyes in the room left Raro's body and landed on him. The looks they were giving him sent a chill up his spine.

"Okay, I know that you're mad. But that was totally self-defense."

Unsheathing his black blade from its place on his back, Sokka muttering about the unfairness of this whole situation and analyzing his situation in the few seconds he had before the action started. The young warrior had just killed one of their leaders, right in front of them. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were none too happy about that. Sokka was clearly outnumbered, but he had one clear advantage. The pirates had laid down their weapons and some of their armor when they began the labor of moving the gold from the hold. Sokka was the only one who hadn't been moving gold; he was the only person in the room that was still fully armed and he was the only one still at full strength because he hadn't been lugging around heavy crates.

Yeah...he could do this.

Gripping his blade tightly, the Water Tribe warrior promised himself that if- no, _when_- he got out of this, he was going to make that scar-faced son-of-a-bitch swallow his own teeth.


	5. Chapter 5

_Hello everybody. Sorry it took me so long to update this, I was busy finishing up my last classes and graduating from college. Now that undergrad's over I'm looking forward to a couple of months of waiting to see if I got into Grad school and not doing shit with my life. The reason why this is coming so late is-besides the whole graduation thing- I had the worst writers block I've ever had; I actually rewrote this chapter a few times, and I'm still not sure that it's as good as I want it to be. As always, any kind of **sincere** feedback; criticisms, encouragement, flames, whatever, is appreciated. _

**Chapter 5**

'_Thwock…thwock…thwock…_'

The wet, squishing sound of Zuko's bare feet radiated amongst the inner confines of the _Ran Fan_, adding their odd cadence to the general chaotic symphony that echoed faintly across the great ship. The scarred firebender's pace was hurried, his steps quick but not panicked. The redness that existed beneath his comprehension whispered softly, wordless yet still comprehensible, into his ears- _go straight, turn left, turn right, turn left again at the next bulkhead_. Rounding another corner, the former prince cracked his neck and picked at an area around his stomach where his top was sticking to his skin, grumbling at the fact that he was completely waterlogged.

Zuko had never enjoyed the feeling of wet clothes against his skin. Though it had been necessary to jump overboard to avoid being blown into meaty red chunks along with those poor fools down on the pirate's ship, he was still annoyed that he had to suffer the indignity of being soaking wet for at least another hour- maybe more. The former prince was especially annoyed that he had had to ditch his boots and his swords in the water as they were making it too difficult for him to swim easily.

He had really liked those boots.

Coming to a break in the passage Zuko paused for a second before turning and heading down the hallway to the left; the firebender was barely conscious of why he chose to go that way. He was barely aware of where it was he was heading exactly. It was as if some unseen force was gently pulling him one way or another. The former prince was not quite sure what the force was, intuition or an after effect of his attempts to tap into the Spirit World, but he knew that it helped him. It took where he needed to go; it let him find who he needed to find.

As he walked down this latest corridor, the faint sound of a scream was heard bouncing around the narrow walls of the Ran Fan before suddenly being cut short. The red that sat behind Zuko's eyes stirred into life; the goal was up ahead. He had better step the pace up a little and make sure that all of his time and hard work had not been for nothing. Unconsciously acknowledging the phantom's advice, the scarred firebender quickened his pace, going from a quick step to a leisurely jog; Zuko didn't get the feeling that he needed to be in too big of a hurry.

As he approached a room near the end of the corridor, the former prince could hear the mix of shouts, curses, grunts, screams and clashes of metal upon metal that typically accompany a battle to the death. Peering around the edge of the door into the room, a curious eyebrow cocked, the firebender was gifted with the sight of a group of four pirates with their backs to him. Through the spaces in their ranks he could see Sokka. The young warrior looked disheveled; worse, he looked pissed off. However, aside from a small bruise on his forehead and the sour look on his face he seemed not much the worse for wear. A quick eye around the room showed Zuko that there were about twice the number of standing pirates lying, injured or worse, at various places on the floor while a few were just staying off to one side, clearly reluctant to get involved with bloody business going on in front of them.

The firebender grunted softly under his breath, a simple and brusque sound which indicated that he was both impressed and a little bit dismayed by what he saw. Zuko had long ago recognized that the Water Tribe warrior was a much harder character than the painted tundra savage he had dueled with at the South Pole. Still, the former prince was surprised that Sokka was able to take down so many pirates by himself; he didn't like the idea that he had been wrong in his assessment of just how dangerous the Water Tribe warrior was.

Two of the brigands squaring off with the young warrior decided to try a simultaneous rush. In the same instant, Zuko decided to remove himself from his hiding place and step fully into the room. While Sokka easily fended off the blows from his two assailants, the scarred firebender assumed a loose stance. Breathing in, he let the familiar warmth of his birthright rise in his chest, the warmth spreading throughout his body and knocking away the chill on his body. Concentrating, Zuko shifted the energy in his chest, down to his hands. Encased in flame, the scarred bender drew back his fists and sent twin gouts of fire at the two pirates that had hung back from attacking Sokka. The pair was quickly converted from human beings into funeral pyres.

As the two pirates screamed their final breath before falling to the floor in twisted black heaps, Zuko turned his attention to the clutch of pirates cowering against the walls like elephant-rats. Turning his imperious gaze onto the crowd, the scarred firebender wrestled down the furious energy heating up his blood. He kept the fire bottled up, inhaling and exhaling, letting the pressure build up higher and higher; the familiar red tint began to grow into his vision. The cutthroats huddled together in fear, shrinking under his sight. Zuko could see their lips moving but he could barely discern their pleas. They didn't sound like men; they didn't sound like men.

'_Mor-sheep…they sound like mor-sheep._'

They go bleat, bleat, !

The red took over his entire vision as he stopped holding back and allowed himself to erupt. The flames exploded outwards, engulfing the mor-sheep. Wrapping them in its warm embrace, holding them close-tight- they could not get away. There end was tortuous, but it came quickly and what once were men were reduced to twisted corpses and greasy black stains on the wall. On second thought, maybe he had given Sokka a little too much credit in dealing with the pirates.

These guys were shit.

Zuko's chest heaved up and down as he tried to catch his breath; the red receded down to nothing. The firebender noticed that he had a strange tightness in his face and realized, with no small amount of surprise, that he was wearing a wide grin.

"Hey!"

Sokka…

For a second, Zuko had forgotten that he was still there. Making sure to rearrange his face back into its usual scowl, the former prince rounded on the voice. The Water Tribe warrior had dispatched his two opponents and was now bearing down on the firebender, his elastic face contorted into a mask of rage, his stained black sword still gripped in his hand. Reaching out a hand, Sokka grabbed the firebender's collar and yanked Zuko's face towards his own. It was taking every ounce of self-control in the young warrior to resist the urge to run that bastard through the heart.

"_What, did you do?" _

"You wanna let go of me," Zuko replied dispassionately.

The firebender's nonchalant tone almost sent Sokka over the edge, but he somehow managed to control himself. Taking a few deep breaths, the young warrior slowly unclenched his hands and released Zuko, backing off a few steps from the other man.

"Thank you," the firebender said hollowly.

"_Fuck_ you," the warrior replied hotly. "What in the hell did you put me in the middle of? And I'm warning you, for the first and the last time, do _not_ lie to me!"

Zuko put his hands up, making a placating gesture to the other young man. The firebender could see that now was the time to lay everything on the line; Sokka was doing a good job of hiding it, but the former prince could tell that the warrior was keyed up. If he did not handle this situation with some delicacy, it was likely that Sokka would end up doing something that they would both regret. Zuko looked warily both ways down the corridor.

"Can we at least walk and talk," Zuko asked.

"Fine."

The firebender turned and started walking down the corridor, the Water Tribe warrior half a step behind him.

"Look, I'm not going to bullshit you. During the planning stages of this plot, I got to thinking; there are too many people involved in this. Too many people know our faces, and there's no telling where those people are going to go or who they're going to talk to. The more of these pirates that die in these waters, the less there are that can come back and surprise us later."

The former prince laid it all out in an emotionless, matter-of-fact tone, as if he were reciting from a grocery list. Despite himself, Sokka was taken aback by the cold-blooded manner in which his counterpart recited his reasons for doing what he did. The firebender's nonchalant demeanor chilled him. But Zuko's cold recitation of the plan for a mass murder was not the reason why the young warrior felt so angry.

"So, while you were plotting this little double cross, it never crossed your mind that_ I_ might have wanted a heads up," Sokka exclaimed.

"I…considered it," Zuko said after a second or so of hesitation. "But, honestly, I didn't think that you would be capable of going along with my plan, and I didn't want to have to deal with any hindrances."

Just as he was about to round a corner, Zuko felt a strong pair of hands grip his shoulders. Before he could react, he was shoved face-first into the opposing wall. The firebender had enough presence of mind to turn his head so that he avoided smashing his nose on the unforgiving metal, leaving the scarred side of his face to take the brunt of the punishment. His body rebounded off of the wall with a resounding '_clunk'_ that echoed down the length of the corridor. Momentarily stunned by the unexpected attack, Zuko was about to push himself off of the wall when he felt the rough press of another body on his own and the now familiar cold contact of edged metal at his neck.

"I'm only going to say this one time Zuko, so pay attention. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. You have _no conceivable idea_ of what I am and I am not capable of. If you ever do something behind my back again, I will kill you! You understand me? I will kill you!"

If Sokka's voice had been cold before, it was glacial now. The red behind Zuko's eyes roared out in protest, urging the firebender to destroy the one that was threatening his life; the firebender suppressed the urge. One movement of his arm, a few pounds of pressure; that was all that it would take for the Water Tribe warrior to bear down on his blade and slice through his neck. The former prince would only have enough time to watch his blood splash across the wall before he bled out and slid, lifeless to the floor. Gritting his teeth, the firebender bitterly- yet calmly- ground out…

"I understand. I made a mistake; I promise that I won't do something like that again. Now, would you please take that knife away from my neck?"

Frankly, Sokka was still itching to just draw steel across the arteries sitting just beneath the edge of his blade. A part of the young warrior was urging him to just go ahead and end the firebender before he had a chance to work some kind of double-cross. Sokka didn't listen to that part of himself; that part was stupid and shortsighted. Easing his chest off of the firebender's back, the Water Tribe warrior slowly pulled his knife off of Zuko's neck.

As satisfying as killing Zuko would be at the moment, the sad truth of the matter was that he needed the firebender right now. Zuko had changed the rules of this game, reworked the entire situation to his own liking. Due to the other young man's machinations, Sokka had absolutely no idea how the situation had been altered. If he was to have any expectation at all of getting out of this disaster alive, he would need the former prince's help.

Zuko _did not_ like being threatened. He had always had a temper, and that particular character flaw had only gotten worse over the years. The firebender raised a hand to his neck and felt the space on his skin where Sokka's knife had nicked him. Every instinct that he had picked up in prison and a life on the run was urging him to kill the warrior for disrespecting him in such a way. The red whispered in his ears, begging him to seek revenge. _He should_…

No…no. That would be stupid. He had to be smart- Sokka had a good reason to be upset with him and upsetting his one connection to the Avatar was one of the last things that Zuko needed to be doing right now.

The two young men stood silently in the narrow corridor for a few seconds, Zuko glaring at Sokka with a hateful expression, which the warrior returned with equal ferocity. It was clear that the nascent partnership that they had entered into was founded on some pretty shaky ground. It was also clear that neither one knew quite what to make of the other.

"Look," the firebender finally said. "We can't just stand here all night trying to kill each other with dirty looks."

The young warrior nodded his head. "Can't say you don't have a point there."

More silence.

"So…I assume that your secret plot to fuck over an entire pirate armada came with an escape route, right?"

"Yeah, it does."

"So…?"

The firebender cocked his head to one side and motioned down the hallway. The pair started walking shoulder to shoulder- neither one wanted the other behind him- down the narrow corridor, trying their best to keep as much space between them as possible.

* * *

The heady scent of night air tinged with the smell of freshly spilled blood and burning wood and bodies filled Zuko and Sokka's nostrils as they finished their climb out of the bowels of the _Ran Fan_. Even with the gory aftertaste, the aroma was still sweet to the firebender. He had not been below decks all that long, and yet he had already gotten sick of the scent of corroding paint and old metal. He took a good, long breath. Looking out across the deck towards the open sea, Zuko could see the light shining off the floating funeral pyre he had made.

The Water Tribe warrior observed his surroundings and quickly realized that the pair had come up on the aft end of the ship. He saw where Zuko was gazing and looked in the same direction.

"That was you," Sokka asked. His finger was pointed towards the source of the light.

"I figured that we would need a distraction. That's what that is."

Looking around, the young warrior saw the confusion enveloping everyone besides himself and the firebender next to him. There were still pirates- a lot of pirates- up on deck but they weren't paying any attention to Sokka or Zuko. They weren't aware of anything except the fact that their main ship, the _Ghost Shadow_, was burning in the sea next to the _Ran Fan, _their other ship- the _Bear-Shark_- had apparently decided to head elsewhere,and that any of their comrades who weren't already roasted were drowning.

Sokka watched with sick fascination as the pirates milled about the deck. Some were shouting and tossing lines down into the choppy water below, trying to pull up the crewmates who had escaped the stricken ship, some- those that were guarding the prisoners- just stood around, unsure of what to do. Some were just standing- numb and disbelieving- watching impotently as the mortally wounded _Ghost Shadow_ succumbed to her injuries and slipped beneath the waters.

"Well, the distraction part is working like a charm," Sokka said. "But we've still got to get out of here in one piece and I'm still waiting to see how you're going to do that."

When he didn't receive a response to his question, Sokka turned to find where Zuko had gone. He found the firebender walking along the edge of the ship, away from where the young warrior saw the pirates gathered.

"What's up," Sokka asked, his arm moving towards the hilt of his sword.

"I'm about to call our ride. Now shut up for a second, I need to concentrate for this. Also, you're going to want to stand back."

Zuko took a series of deep breaths, filling his lungs with air and then blowing it out. In, and out; in, and out; in and out. The former prince cleared his mind of all needless thoughts and focused inwards. He focused on the warmth in his chest and separated that energy into ying and yang- positive and negative; black and white.

Off to the side, Sokka could feel a change flowing through the air. Looking down at his arm, he saw the goose bumps rising on his skin and he could feel the tiny hairs on the back of his neck starting to stand on end. The warrior knew what was coming even before the firebender started moving his arms through the sweeping arm motions, surrounded by crackling yellow-white light. Sokka averted his eyes away from the flash as the bolt of lightning shot out from the end of the firebender's fingertips and lanced up into the sky.

Everything was calm on the water for a few moments; Sokka turned to look over his shoulder. No matter how distracted the pirates were, at least one of them had to have seen that lightning bolt. Frowning, he turned his neck back around.

"Hey, have we got that ride coming or what," the warrior asked.

The question was barely out of Sokka's mouth before he saw a blue-white flare rise up out of the ocean and burst in the sky before fizzling out in a shimmering rain of sparks.

"That's us," Zuko said.

* * *

One of Luzai's strong hands gripped Zuko's forearm and pulled him all the way on board the deck of the _Bear-Shark_. When his bare feet were planted firmly on the wood of ship, the firebender turned around and reached a hand down to help pull Sokka aboard. The Water Tribe warrior clasped the proffered limb with a grunt of thanks. As soon as he was all the way aboard, Sokka was greeted by the faint scent of spilled blood; looking past the firebender and the stoic pirate, the warrior saw a crewman swabbing the deck. Sokka had a pretty good guess as to what that crewman was swabbing up. Their small party was soon joined by The Lady of the Flowers.

"How did everything go with the mutiny," Zuko asked the Lady.

"Good," the cross-dresser replied.

"Looks like you had some resistance."

"Your concern is touching my dear, but it was nothing that we couldn't handle."

Zuko could feel Sokka's eyes on him; the warrior was staring holes through his back, probably wondering about how out of the loop he had been. Looking towards Sokka, the Lady quirked a carefully penciled eyebrow at the warrior before sweeping her eye back towards the scarred firebender.

"This one doesn't look too happy Ban. What did you do to him?"

The firebender picked up the edge in the voice; the unvoiced question. _'Should I take care of this?_' He didn't need any of these cutthroats thinking that the warrior would be the source of any problems later on. Sokka must have picked up on the undercurrent as well because he immediately wiped the glare off of his face and readopted his flippant attitude.

"I'm alright," Sokka assured the Lady. "We just had a small difference in opinion, that's all. We're back to being best friends now. Isn't that right…Lee?"

"Yes, of course," the firebender stated firmly.

"Alright, the handsome one made it!"

Everyone's eyes were drawn towards the voice; Chaka was making her way towards the group, stripped down to her undergarments. So, she was in on this too.

"You know I couldn't stay away from you Chaka," Sokka quipped as the woman jumped into his arms, wrapping her arms firmly around his neck.

"By the way, why are you almost naked?"

"Blood's like cum," she said matter-of-factly. "I don't like getting it on my clothes."

The Water Tribe warrior just barely fought down the chill that creeped up his spine.

"So, how many people are left," Zuko asked.

"Eleven, including you two," Chaka said.

"That's all," the Water Tribe warrior asked. "You did this with nine people?"

"There were more," Luzai stated bluntly. Then he grinned.

"Now there's less…smaller split."

"We kept just enough alive to be able to crew the ship so that we can make our getaway," the Lady said.

"Alright," the scarred firbender said before disengaging from the group and heading towards the captain's cabin.

"I'm going to go get some sleep, wake me up when we get to the cove."

* * *

"This is where we part ways," the scarred firebender declared to the faces looking at him from the nondescript fishing skiff bobbing in the sea a dozen feet away from his own ship.

The glint of the rising sun reflected sharply off of the water that separated the two boats was hurting his eyes as they had yet to readjust to the daylight outside of the labyrinthine bowels of the pirate cove.

"I'm sure this goes without saying, but I'll go ahead and say it anyway. It would be better for you if the events of the last few weeks were forgotten. Everything from when you first saw my face, up to last night, never happened; do you understand?"

The threat was clear. The trio of Luzai, Chaka and the Lady of the Flowers shared a collective scoff. Who did scarface think he was talking too; they weren't new to this. They were professionals. Luzai signaled to the one other pirate manning the rudder to begin pulling away from the firebender's skiff.

"Same goes to you Lee," Chaka replied with a smile that was anything but sweet.

"It's been fun. When he wakes up, tell your boy I'm sorry."

Zuko didn't ask what the girl meant by that. With that parting shot, the woman blew a kiss at the scarred vagrant's as her own ship pulled away into the distance. Zuko watched the ship pull away, growing smaller and smaller in the distance until it was reduced to a gray bump skirting along the horizon. Confident that they were far enough away, the firebender decided to head down below the deck to where Sokka was sleeping off the exertions of last night; between the robbery, the fighting, and unloading the gold into the smaller ships, it had been a tiring experience.

Walking down the steps, he pushed past the curtain that did the work of a door for this ship and went into the hold. Reclined in a hammock with his back towards the firebender, Sokka lay breathing steadily. Zuko was about to say something to rouse him when he found himself unexpectedly cut off.

"You know why the truth sucks; rhetorical question by the way," the warrior said evenly.

"It sucks because, most of the time the truth is ugly; it's inconvenient; its lets people know things that you think they'd be better off not knowing."

Sokka rolled over in the hammock so that he could stare up at the ceiling.

"But, you see, telling the truth is the only way that you can get anybody to trust you. Tell lies and you can trap yourself an accomplice, but if you tell the truth and you can earn yourself a partner. And a partner is a lot better to have watching your back than an accomplice."

Silence; though the Water Tribe warrior was no longer talking, something told the former prince that he wasn't quite done yet. So he waited.

"…You're not smart enough to lie to me Zuko…"

Sokka yawned and rolled back over. It was as clear a dismissal as the firebender had ever seen.

* * *

_There you have it. Next chapter should be coming soon. If anybody was wondering why Sokka was all alone in the boonies of the Fire Nation, some of your questions will be given hints which will point towards answers in Chapter 6! Hooray!_


	6. Chapter 6

_Yay! New chapter! This is coming out later than I wanted but I felt that I had to rework this one a couple of times before it was any good. Also, while moving files over to my new laptop from the old one, I came across one of the first fanfiction stories I'd ever written, a Kingdom Hearts fic titled- **Blood in the Streets- **that I never finished. I've been re-editing that and am going to be uploading that story as well. If anybody cares to, check it out; it's pretty good. As always, reviews are appreciated!_

* * *

**Chapter 6**

The great god; in ancient times, before the Sozin's War, before a single Fire Sage decided to seize power from his brothers and declared himself the Fire _Lord_. Before the foundation of any of the trappings that would form the base of the great civilization of the Fire Nation; before a society of firebending nomads were inspired to name themselves after the glowing orb in the sky, it was revered.

The sun; the source and sole provider, lifeblood, ally, father, mother, idol, light of truth, the shining God hanging over the earth in indolence for twelve hours a day before retiring beneath the horizon, abandoning the insects to the terrors of the night. Zuko's golden eyes stared outside of his room's window; the golden deity had long since changed its hue to scarlet and was slowly sinking his way underneath the dull green-brown strip marking the edge of the world.

He remembered, years and years before he had been made into the man he was now, being told by one of his tutors about the sunsets in this part of the Fire Nation. He recalled the old woman saying something about the dust and the humidity doing something that colored the sky so that the sunset was an unearthly golden-amber color. He couldn't really remember the explanation as for why it did that- he hadn't liked the nasty old bitch one bit, so her lessons weren't the ones that stuck in his head. The hag had doted on his sister; Azula loved her.

Still, the tutor hadn't been lying when she said that sun-fall in these parts was a sight to see.

The former prince lounged on his side, the airy covers on his bed sticking in places on his skin that were still damp, and wordlessly watched the slow progress of the sun. He stared- not transfixed, but half-hypnotized- by the alien sunset. The feeling of soft skin tracing the raised coarseness of his old scars roused the firebender from his silent reverie, bringing him gently back into the here and now. Zuko stretched his spine and rolled over. He pressed one of the women he had bought for himself- the other was over in a corner, tipping back an almost empty bottle of spirits- beneath him as the sweet stink of copulation rising up into his nostrils. She was a few years younger than him, slimmish, but with adequately full breasts and a heart shaped rear; the girl had dark features not typically associated with the Fire Nation- probably an import they had shipped in to add some exotic flavor to the stable.

The scarred prince lowered his head down to hers, letting his hair fall about her face and ring them both in black. He brushed his lips against the girls; lightly- gently. Ever so gently; the girl wondered about that- that a man like this would be so gentle. He had looked like a rough one. She had been afraid of the sight of him and when he took her and her colleague up to his room, she had been preparing for a long and probably painful night. Things hadn't worked out like that though; he had been full of surprises.

Zuko deepened the kiss, parting her lips with his tongue and snaking the organ inside of her willing mouth. The scarred firebender ran a hand down one of her legs like he was preparing to go in again, but the truth was that he was already becoming uninterested. He was not feeling in the mood right now and it didn't look like he was going to be getting there in the next few seconds. The former prince disengaged himself from his strumpet and- with a grunt- hoisted himself up off of the girl before kicking his feet over the edge of the bed. Setting his feet on the floor, the scarred firebender stood up- taking a second to make sure that he was completely steady on his feet (he wasn't)- and began scanning the floor of the dim room for his clothes. Succeeding in locating his pants, Zuko wobbled over to them and pulled them up, securing the belt around his waist.

Confident that nothing would be slipping off of him, the scarred firebender started towards the door to his room.

"Leaving so soon," the woman asked from the bed. "We're still paid up, y'know".

"Just going to check on my partner," Zuko replied before pushing the door to the room open and stepping out into the hallway.

The firebender squinted and blinked against the unexpectedly bright lights out in the hallway. Just as soon as he had regained his normal sight, Zuko had to sidestep a pair of brightly painted and feathered working girls- one blue, one green- who was pulling along an elderly man by the front of his robe. Grimacing and trying not to think about what those ladies were going to be doing to the wrinkled bastard, the former prince walked down the richly decorated corridor towards the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, he reached the bottom and hooked a right towards a room where the mellow notes of a _guan sheng_ wafted through the scarlet curtain strewn through with pearl sequins which closed the chamber off from the rest of the building.

Reaching the curtain, the firebender parted the veil with his hands and stepped into the chamber. Over on a raised platform a firm-bodied young woman sat skillfully plucking the strings on the person-sized instrument_, _her long black hair in a braid. She was naked as the day she was born save for a pair of elaborate hooped earrings, gold anklets and a black choker decorated with rubies. Zuko allowed his eyes to linger on the player for a while before scanning the small crowd gathered on the overstuffed pillows and couches spread around the floor.

Not counting himself, the scarred firebender counted four men and around a dozen women; all in various states of undress. Zuko immediately homed in on the only male in the room who was not old enough to be his father and started towards him. Sokka sat a ways off from everyone else in the room, laid up on a fluffy mound of cushions, pillows and silks; there was a dark green glass bottle gripped lightly in his left hand. The Water Tribe warrior's only company was a buxom girl with a bob haircut and dressed in a purple kimono that showed off an impressive phoenix tattoo across her chest.

"You really don't need to keep coming to check on me," Sokka said, looking right through the firebender and focusing on the musician up on the dais.

"Actually, I think that I do," Zuko said, grabbing a cushion and planting himself across from the young warrior.

"You're blocking my view princess," Sokka deadpanned. A slight tightening in his forehead was the only change the firebender could detect in his opposite's face.

"You'll live," Zuko replied.

"You're missing the point," Sokka returned dispassionately. "You brought me here _to relax_. What you see here is me. Relaxing. Listening to music is relaxing. What you're doing now is not very good host behavior."

He tipped his bottle back and downed a swig of whatever it was he had in that bottle.

"Ahh…smooth," the Water Tribe warrior uttered in a strained rasp.

The girl sitting next to him elbowed in the arm; wordlessly, he passed the bottle over to her. Fixing Zuko with a mildly sozzled glare, Sokka continued.

"I'm here trying to work up a buzz and enjoy the lovely floorshow being performed by that beautiful naked chick up there, and then your ugly ass shows up. You are dangerously close to ruining my evening."

The firebender's frown deepened as he glared at the Water Tribe warrior.

Ever since the duo had parted ways with their coconspirators from the _Ran Fan_, Sokka had been acting like this, throwing out subtle jibes coupled with the odd outright insult to Zuko. At first the firebender had taken the attitude in stride; the warrior had made it abundantly clear that he did not approve of Zuko's taking action behind his back on the _Ran Fan_. As a means of making peace, the former prince had taken it upon himself to try and break the tension by taking Sokka to a place where he could let off some steam. To that end, Zuko had brought the Water Tribe warrior to the infamous Floating Blossom, the best "sporting house" in this stretch of the Fire Nation.

He had had it all figured out; he would let Sokka sample the fine wares on display at the Blossom and then they could get back on the road to reunite with the Avatar. Easy and done. However, the pleasant surroundings had done nothing to improve the Water Tribe warrior's attitude; he was still acting like an ass.

And the firebender was quickly running out of the extremely short reserve of patience that he had.

Shifting so that he could look the at the girl with the tattoo on her chest eye to eye, Zuko leaned over and whispered;

"Get lost for a little while."

She cut her eyes from the scarred guest to her dusky-skinned client. He dug into his pants pocket and retracted a few golden coins to sweeten the suggestion that she go find something else to do. Placing the money into her pale fist, the girl rose to her feet and started toward the door.

"Where are you going," the Water Tribe warrior asked around the mouth of his bottle, but he was met with silence.

"_Pffh_, fine then."

He cut his eyes towards the firebender sitting at his side. "Got something you want to say?"

The Water Tribe warrior tipped the bottle back. The former prince sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Back to the reason why I came down here in the first place…we need to clear the air between us."

"Be-_cause_ we haven't already done that…oh, no, wait, yes we have. Doesn't it usually go something like me warning you not to lie to me and you giving some type of half-hearted reassurance and hollow claim that you're not a complete bastard? Then we sort of stare each other down in a threatening and slightly homoerotic fashion, but both of us secretly acknowledge that nothing's really changed in our relationship."

"You just about done with all the nonsense," Zuko muttered, his temper starting to rise.

"Never," Sokka shot back, suddenly sounding much more sober than he had just moment ago.

"I'm the meat and_ fucking sarcasm_ guy, not the teetotal and straight-talk fellow; nonsense is how I deal with stress."

Both Zuko and Sokka noticed that some of the other patrons in the room were glancing over in their direction; apparently their conversation was not quite as clandestine as they had originally thought. A tense silence lay between the pair for a moment before the duo rose out of their seats and exited the music chamber. Making their way through the main foyer, the warrior and the firebender made their way out into the surprisingly elaborate garden that was attached to the side of the Floating Blossom. After a quick check to make sure that they were alone, Sokka and Zuko returned to their standoff.

"I know that this isn't the first time that I've said this," the firebender began, "but if we're going to be making this journey together we need to…"

"We need to trust each other. Yeah, I got it," the Water Tribe warrior interjected, cutting his counterpart off mid-sentence.

"Easier said than done."

"Sokka," the former prince said, slowly and seriously, letting every one of his words sink in.

"I really couldn't give a damn about being your friend, or having you like me, but one thing I'm sure of is that we can't go on like we've been going on. You're not a moron, you know as well as I do that we need to come to some kind of stopping point, _or else_."

At first the Water Tribe warrior looked resentful. Then he looked thoughtful. And then he spoke.

"You want to know what my main problem with you is? I just can't figure out your endgame."

The firebender rolled his eyes. "I already told you what my endgame is."

Now it was Sokka's turn to roll his eyes. "Yeah, revenge."

The young warrior wasn't quite ready to buy that explanation just yet. It was too simple. In his short association with the former prince of the Fire Nation, Sokka had found Zuko to be amoral, intelligent, utterly ruthless, and about as far from simple as one man could possibly be.

"Let's just say I've still got some questions about you."

The former prince frowned. He was finding himself surprisingly annoyed by the accusatory tone in Sokka's voice.

"That's funny, because I've got some question of my own," Zuko shot back.

"So how about this; full disclosure. Right now, you ask a question, I ask a question. We'll be completely real and open with our answers."

Sokka looked at Zuko through narrowed eyes, as if suspecting some sort of trick was at work her that he couldn't quite decipher.

"Yeah…yeah, okay," the young warrior muttered. He didn't expect complete honesty from the firebender, but asking some questions couldn't hurt. If he could get the stoic Zuko talking, he might slip up and reveal things he otherwise wouldn't.

"One thing I want to know; how did you find me?"

Zuko cursed under his breath; this was going to be pretty hard to explain.

"I sort of…I don't know, sensed you."

"Say…what now?"

"Look, I really don't know myself, okay," the firebender said quickly.

"About a week after I snuck out of Ba Sing Se, I was hiding out in some woods and I caught this really bad fever. I could barely walk, I couldn't sleep and eventually weird things started happening to my vision. Everything started to have this weird…redness to it."

"Redness," Sokka asked, his interest piqued.

"Best way I can describe it," Zuko replied. "Anyway, after the physical symptoms came the really weird part."

"The really weird part? What does that even mean?"

"Dreams. All of a sudden, in the midst of being sick as a draft-dog I start having these weird fever dreams. I saw all kinds of people and places- some I've seen before, some that I haven't. Eventually, the visions stopped coming just when I was asleep and started to pop up when I was awake."

The firebender sighed and looked up at the starry night sky.

"As you can probably guess, I was pretty freaked out by all of this, so I decided to find somebody that could explain things to me. I headed for the first temple I could find and talked to some of the monks- one of the holy men told me that I had this…shade hanging over me. He told me a bunch of stuff about the Spirit World and offered to let me have a space in the temple to meditate."

"I'm surprised you went along with that. Dealing with the Spirits doesn't really sound like your thing," Sokka quipped lightly.

"My uncle had once told me about a time where he crossed over into the Spirit World; trying to find the answers to my problems there wasn't the craziest idea I heard. So I followed his advice; after a while I found that I could, like, give the visions focus."

"Wait, what do you mean focus," the young warrior asked, fully attentive.

"I found that if I focused on something hard enough, I got this sense of where it was. I decided that the best thing to do would be to use this new ability of mine to find the avatar."

"So, let me see if I understand this," Sokka said matter-of-factly. "You just get an image in your head and this spirit sense you have lets you find anybody you want to find?"

The young warrior let the gravity of the former prince's words sink in. What Zuko was describing sounded an awful lot like one of Aang's spiritual powers. That was something to keep in mind.

"It's not exactly the most accurate tool in the world," the firebender replied. "Case in point; I was trying to find the avatar, but all I ended up with was you."

The Water Tribe warrior made a rude gesture, but otherwise seemed to take the whole story in stride. Frankly, Zuko had expected his opposite to react to his revelation with a bit more skepticism. He took note of the fact that Sokka didn't.

"Now it's my turn," the firebender said.

Sokka tried to look nonchalant as he waited for the scarred firebender to finish figuring out what he wanted to ask him. Even though the two of them had agreed to full disclosure, the Water Tribe warrior had no intention of being completely forthcoming with Zuko if the former prince asked him something which he was not completely comfortable answering.

"My question is…what were you doing out in the middle of nowhere, by yourself."

Even in the dim light, Zuko could make out the way that the Water Tribesman's features contorted into a frown.

"That's kind of a long story," the warrior said after a pause.

"You act like I've got something better to do with my time," the firebender snapped back, angry at the hesitation in the other's voice.

"We have an agreement. Don't fucking back out on me now Sokka."

"Hey, chill out," the young warrior snapped back.

Sokka sighed put his hands behind his head, tilting his chin up to look towards the starry night sky. His eyes swam over the inky black expanse as if seeking some hidden source of solace amongst the innumerable lights in the heavens.

"Everything started because I was feeling a little bit useless. This shooting star fell down from the sky and caused a forest fire and while everybody else was busy keeping it from getting into this little town that was nearby, I was stuck looking after Momo."

"Momo's the little lemur thing, right," the firebender asked.

"Yeah, good memory. Anyway, at that second, it hits me, among most of my friends, I'm the odd man out; I can't control an element or anything cool like that. So anyway, we get to this town and the guys get the idea that if I buy something, I'll cheer up. We end up going to the weapon shop…

* * *

"_Shopping!"_

"_Sweet fancy spirits, you are such a chick."_

_Sokka shot an annoyed glance down towards his shoulder where Toph was hanging onto his elbow. _

"_I am so giving you the worst death glare ever right now," he said down to her. _

"_Lucky for me death glares don't work on people who **can't see**," the earthbender replied snarkily. _

"_Hey, behave you two," Katara interjected. "I don't want you causing a scene in here."_

"_Sure thing __mom__," Toph replied. _

_While his sister sputtered at their blind friend's teasing, Sokka extracted himself from the girls and headed towards a wall where numerous bladed weapons were hanging, Aang following close behind. While the girls alternated between sniping at each other and bickering with each other, the boys- or rather, the boy that actually had use for sharp, pointy weapons- carefully walked around the sales floor, examining the wares on display. The young avatar watched as his warrior friend would every so often pick up one of the objects he was looking over and heft it, feeling it's weight and giving it a few experimental swings. While he was looking up at the wall, Aang sidled up beside him. _

"_So, you see anything you might want," the avatar asked. _

"_Not really sure," the young warrior replied. _

_Sokka reached out a hand and ran his fingers along the pommel of a longsword that sat at eyelevel. Aang watched as the neutral look on his tall friend's face gradually morphed into a frown. The avatar was struck by how unnatural the somber expression looked on the tribesman. _

"_Was this a bad idea," the airbender asked. _

_Sokka looked down towards the airbender and quickly tried to divert the direction that this conversation was heading. _

"_What? No, no, man. I really appreciate you guys taking me out and offering to buy me stuff…"_

"_**Whoa**__, we never offered to buy you…_

"…_but, really, what's the point of getting new stuff anyway? I mean sure, I'll feel good at first because I love shiny things, but when it's all said and done I'm going to be back to feeling all mopey."_

_The Water Tribe warrior grabbed the longsword and lifted it off of the wall. He looked down on the blade with an appraising eye. Sokka scowled. _

"_If I'm honest, the stuff in here isn't really my style anyway."_

_Aang quirked a curious eyebrow. "What do you mean? I've seen you use a sword before."_

"_Yeah, that's true," the warrior said. _

"_But I'm really an amateur with stuff like this. The weapons that we made in the Water Tribe were a lot more…I don't want to say crude, but they were different. I'm a club and machete man; I hack and smash, I don't…touché and riposte. Most of the stuff in here requires a bit more…grace than I have."_

"_What are you guys talking about?"_

_Aang and Sokka turned to see Katara and Toph. _

"_I don't think that our plan is working out guys," Aang said. _

"_Ugh, don't tell me he's still all mopey and stuff," the earthbender groaned in frustration._

"_Is there really nothing in here that you want," Katara asked, placing an encouraging hand on his arm. _

_Sokka smiled at his sister and gently squeezed her extended hand. _

"_Thanks for the concern sis. But it's not that there's nothing here that I want, its just that there's nothing that I can really use…"_

_The young warrior's voice trailed off as his eyes wandering eyes landed upon the absolutely magnificent work of art that sat in a richly carved wooden case on the opposite wall. Wordlessly, Sokka approached; he could tell right away that he would never have enough cash to buy such an exquisite sword. That didn't matter; he just wanted to be nearer to it, to bask in its presence. Pressing his face near to the object of his affection, close enough so that the rich scent orangeblossom oil filled his nostrils, the young warrior ran his hand down the length of the sheath. _

"_Now that's what Sokka's talking about," he whispered to himself. _

"_I see you have a good eye."_

_Sokka flinched and looked up in surprise to find the bearded and balding owner of the weapon shop standing over his shoulder, beaming. Toph, Katara and Aang also gathered around to see what it was that had ensnared their friend's attention. _

"_That looks nice," said Katara as she looked upon the sword. _

"_That's an original from Piandao, the greatest sword master and sword maker in Fire Nation history," the shop owner said, his pride at having such a valuable piece evident in his voice. _

"_He lives in the big castle up the road from here." _

"_That's it," Aang exclaimed. "That's what you need!"_

"_What, the sword," Sokka asked skeptically. _

"_I appreciate the thought, but I really don't think that you guys could afford to get it for me."_

"_Not the sword," the airbender replied. "I'm talking about a master."_

"_That's a really good idea," Katara agreed. "Everyone needs a teacher." _

"_Well…it would be nice to be a master swordfighter," Sokka agreed. _

"_But, I'm just some random nobody; there's no guarantee that this Piandao guy would take me as a student, or if he's even taking students in the first place."_

"_Actually, you're in luck," the shop owner interjected._

"_The big news around the whole province is that, for the first time in years, Piandao is taking on students. Granted, the whole thing is guaranteed to be extremely selective, but you don't stand to lose anything by trying." _

"_See, this guy's got the right idea," Toph said. "So stop being a wuss and go ask him."_

_Sokka couldn't help but smile a little bit at the advice of his three friends and one complete stranger. Though he was almost certain that he would be turned away at the door of the castle, he realized that they were right; he didn't lose anything by trying. _

"…_Alright. I'll talk to him." _


	7. Chapter 7

**Guess who's back?**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

It was close…very close. He couldn't strike just yet though; oh no, he had to be patient. If he rushed things, attacked before the right moment, he would be foiled. That was one of the things that master Piandao had taught him. If he botched his attack this time, he would have to wait for the next opportunity and Spirits only knew when that would be. Yes, patience was the key.

'_Buzz, buzz.' 'Buzzz, buzz.'_

Oh yeah; there goes the little blood sucker, flittering around near his right ear, without a care in the world. The Water Tribe warrior almost smirked. Yeah, just keep on thinking that little monster bug; go on, nothing to be afraid of. His body tensed slightly as the sound of buzzing receded from his ear. Sokka's cold blue eyes caught sight and locked on to an erratic dark spot that frittered up and down, round and round, in front of his face. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hands from their place in his lap and held them, palms up, near his chest. The young warrior finally cracked a smile.

He had him right where he wanted him. Now, softly, softly…reel him in and…

'_Smack!' _

The Water Tribe warrior pulled apart his clasped hands and looked down at the brownish-red smudge staining his palms in an odd mix of satisfaction and disgust.

"You were a worthy enemy, little blood-sucking monster bug, but you were never going to be a match for my lightning fast hands."

A rustling in the underbrush off to the side caused Sokka to unconsciously reach for his sword, lying on the ground by his side. Upon seeing the scarred, scowling face of his current traveling companion, the young tribesman relaxed- slightly. He still wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea that Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation, was now his ally. It was all just too weird. However, Sokka's attitude brightened considerably when he saw that the former prince was carrying some kind of large, meaty bird over his shoulder.

The firebender tossed the felled pheasant onto the ground in the center of their camp.

"I take it the hunt went well," Sokka quipped while climbing to his feet. He already had his knife out, ready to pluck and gut the bird. Zuko just grunted and dusted some leaves and dirt off of his clothes.

"I took care of the hard part, you do the cooking. And while you're dressing that bird, you can tell me the rest of that story."

Now it was Sokka's turn to scowl and grunt non-committedly. He and Zuko had left that brothel over a week ago and the pair had been traveling light and fast in that time, trying to cover as much ground as possible. As long as they had been on the move, Zuko hadn't bothered him too much about telling the rest of his story of how he came to be separated from the Avatar's group. Now that they had come to the island of Dewaii- a place of relative safety in a province of little importance- the firebender was determined to make the tribesman spill his guts.

Going by the look on his face, Zuko could tell that Sokka was not too keen to continue his history.

"…Deal's a deal I guess," Sokka muttered as he yanked a handful of feathers out of the bird.

"So, where did I cut off last time?"

"You were in a weapons shop and the guy who owned the place suggested that you should go up to Master Piandao's estate in order to ask him to train you. And, I think you should know right now, I find the idea that a man of Piandao's stature taking _you_ as student to be completely laughable."

"Well good thing for me that I don't really care what you think you greasy cocksucker; now, you mind if I tell my story or you just want to cut my legs out from under me?"

The firebender waved a hand nonchalantly, telling his counterpart to proceed.

"All right, so after we head out from the shop all of us head back to camp. After I collect my stuff, I head down the road out of the village up to Master Piandao's ridiculously huge estate and…

* * *

_It had taken Sokka nearly half an hour to climb all the way up the steep path that led to the entrance of the Piandao estate. Standing before the large arched doors of the compound's outer wall, the young tribesman felt slipped his rucksack off of his back and reached up to adjust the collar of his tunic. Pulling a handkerchief from out of his robe, Sokka quickly wiped the sweat that was beginning to stream down his face. The sweat wasn't just from the blazing heat common at this time of year in the Fire Nation; much of it was from sheer nervousness._

_The Water Tribe warrior tried to convince himself that his anxiousness was stupid. He had never even heard of this Piandao guy before a few hours ago; what reason should he have to feel nervous? Still, the blade master was supposed to be the greatest swordsman for several generations and in the Fire Nation. Looking at the opulent decorations lining the walls of the gate to the estate, Sokka could tell that Piandao was of the aristocratic class. In the face of such an ostentatious barrier, the tribesman- in his stolen, patched clothing and rough cotton shoes- couldn't help be feel incredibly shabby. _

_Frowning at his own hesitance, Sokka finished fussing with his clothes and plucked up his courage. Grasping one of the large door knockers in his hands he hefted the heavy iron weight and brought it back down against the lacquered wood on the door. After a few knocks, Sokka didn't have long to wait before he heard the lock on the other side of the gate shifting and the door lurched inwards to reveal the wrinkled features of an old man- presumably one of Piandao's servants._

"_Hello, can I help you young man?"_

_Standing a bit straighter, the tribesman answered in what he imagined to be a formal and dignified tone._

"_I have come to study at the feet of the master."_

"_Of course you have," the old man remarked in a dry tone. "Pick up your things and follow me kid."_

_Without further ceremony the servant turned and began walking away. Sokka quickly picked up his things and followed in the old man's wake, trailing him through the estate's large courtyard and into the main house. Once inside the building, the old servant led his young visitor down the long gallery until they reached a set of wooden doors decorated with highly detailed carvings, not of Komodo-Rhinos or other animals common to the Fire Nation, but of Furred Whales like the ones from his home in the South Pole._

"_Cool."_

"_Doubt you've ever seen creatures like those before, huh kid," the old servant asked. _

"_Huh? What are you…"_

"_The carvings," the man replied, jabbing a finger at the figures impressed into the door. "I know its hard to believe, but creatures such as those really do exist in this world, though you've got to go a long way from the Fire Nation to see them."_

_Sokka fought down the knowing smirk forming in his lips and merely nodded in feigned awe. He'd seen those creatures, and many more besides them, up close and personal; or rather, Sokka of the Water Tribe had seen them, grown up with them, hunted them. And right now, in this place, he had to remember that he could not be a member of the Water Tribe._

_The servant on the carved wood and the door, almost noiselessly, swung open revealing a richly furnished drawing room decorated with the deep red fixtures that were so common to the Fire Nation._

"_You can wait in here while I inform Master Piandao of your request for an audience. You shouldn't have to wait for long," the old man said._

_Sokka said his thanks to the servant before the latter made his exit, leaving the young tribesman to his own devices. Now that he was by himself again, he was annoyed to find that the butterflies were back to fluttering around in his stomach. Seriously, what was he even doing here? He was acting like he had all of the time in the world to go off and learn swordplay. _

_How does it take to become a master swordsman anyway? What with the invasion and all the preparations for that and the comet and finding of a firebending master for Aang, did he really have the time to be doing something like this? If he had any sense at all he would just walk out of this place right now, find the guys, pack up on Appa and…_

"_Son?"_

"_Eh," Sokka asked, unexpectedly dragged from his navel-gazing by the sound of the servant's voice._

"_The master will see you now. Pray that you prove worthy."_

"_Oh?...Oh! Great! I will."_

_Reaching up to adjust his already perfectly adjusted collar, the tribesman was led through a door sitting at the back of the drawing room. Passing through the door, Sokka found himself in a spacious study, just as lavishly decorated as the rest of the house that he had seen thus far. Against one wall lay a bookcase, filled to capacity with various texts and scrolls. Every fixture in the room, from the baseboards to the door jambs seemed to be lined in gold or some other shining metal. An incredibly complex portrait of a sweeping mountainside landscape dominated the wall on the opposing side of the room. Arranged at different spaces around the room were racks of weapons of all types._

_Kneeling at low table bathed in a beam of light streaming in from an open window, Sokka could spy a slender man moving an ink brush in broad, controlled, strokes over a piece of paper._

"_Master, this is the young man that wishes to train under you."_

_The servant looked back at Sokka and grunted, "…well, introduce yourself."_

"_Oh, right," the tribesman said. _

"_My name is Sokka, it's…um…nice to meet you."_

"_Sokka," the sword master repeated, rolling the unfamiliar syllables around on his tongue. "That's an interesting name."_

"_Oh," the tribesman said, panicking a bit. "Really? Because it's a pretty common name for Fire Nation colonials…in the Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom. Where… y'know…I come from."_

"_Right," Piandao replied, not even bothering to look up from his writing. _

_Sokka wondered if he could possibly sound any dumber. _

"_So let me guess," Piando began._

"_You've come hundreds of miles from your little village, where you're the best swordsman in town, and you think that you deserve to learn from the master."_

_Piandao's words were practically dripping with condescension. It was clear to Sokka that the sword master viewed his presence as little more than an annoyance. The tribesman was about to be offended when he stopped and thought to himself. This was the guy that was called the greatest sword master and sword maker the Fire Nation had ever seen. If Piandao really was even a fraction as good as everyone said he was then he would have random people hitting up to become his students all the time. And, given the sarcastic way in which he addressed him, Sokka guessed that many of the people who came seeking tutelage from the master were pompous brats. That had to get irritating._

_So…maybe the key to getting in was to be the opposite of pompous? _

"_Well, actually, I've been all over the world," Sokka said._

"_Yep, here we go…" _

"_And…I know one thing for sure…"_

_The Water Tribe warrior got down on his knees and kowtowed before the man sitting behind the desk._

"…_I have a lot to learn."_

_Like nothing else, the younger man's open display of humility caught Piandao off guard. For the first time, the sword master took his attention off of his calligraphy and actually looked at the young man who had come to ask his for his tutelage. _

"_You know, you're not doing a very good job of selling yourself," the sword master remarked. _

_Though the words were far from encouraging, Sokka noticed the subtle change in the man's tone. Where before Piandao had sounded patronizing, he now sounded thoughtful; that had to be a good sign._

"_I know. Your butler told me that I should pray for you to find me worthy, but the truth is…I don't know if I am worthy."_

_Piandao studied Sokka, appraising the newcomer with a stern glance. For what felt like an unbearably long length of time, Sokka kept his position on the floor, just waiting for the master to say or do something, anything. Piandao, however merely sat there, looking at him…no, not just looking at him. Studying him; appraising him as if his young body was a gem of rough cut and suspect quality. _

_The master rose._

"_Get on your feet, Sokka." _

"_Sir?"_

"_You say that you're not sure if you're worthy. Well, let's find out together how worthy you are."_

_With a few long strides, Piandao was past Sokka and nearly through the door by the time his newest student had scrambled to his feet. _

"_You can leave your pack in here, I'll have one of the servants come to collect it," the master called over his shoulder as he exited the room. "Now, let's get a move on; we haven't got all day." _

"_Sorry, sorry," the tribesman said. _

_Though he was able to catch up with the older man quickly enough, Sokka was surprised at how fast Piandao was able to move just by walking. When the young tribesman had said just a few minutes ago that he doubted his own worth, he hadn't been 100 percent sincere; Sokka was nothing if not confident in his ability to do anything he set his mind to. However, being next to Piandao- or rather, traveling in his wake- was forcing him to reassess himself. Sokka found himself almost having to jog to keep up with the __**walking**__ pace of a man who was clearly more than twice his age. That was just insane!_

_The Water Tribe warrior shook his head, bemused by his own thoughts. Just what would gaining a master end up costing him?_

_Passing by several footmen and chambermaids as they rushed through the halls, Sokka followed Piandao all the way through a rear entrance that led out to a lush palatial garden. The sword master led his pupil along a winding path made out of pure white cobblestones until they came upon a hunchbacked old woman carefully pruning a shrub festooned with Ember Lilies. _

"_Itza," Piandao called, rousing the hunched woman from her work. _

"_Yes master," she replied. _

"_I let the apprentices loose on the grounds this morning for individual training. Alert Lee and the other gardeners and have them fetch those boys back here, if you would be so kind."_

"_At once, master." _

_After the old woman made an awkward half-bow and scurried off to her task, Piandao turned and leveled a stern gaze upon Sokka. The Water Tribe warrior suddenly felt very small, as if being in the sight of the great swordsman was causing him to literally shrink down to the size of a bug. Sokka began to wonder if he had done something in the last few minutes to offend Piandao, and he was about to voice his misgivings when his new master cut him off. _

"_I didn't ask you this properly before, Sokka, but why did you come to train under me?"_

_The young warrior got the sense that there was more to Piandao's question than the obvious, but answered truthfully. _

"_Because you're known as the greatest sword master the Fire Nation's ever had; who doesn't want to be trained by the best?"_

"_What you said explains why you would __**want**__ to become my disciple," the sword master said. "But that doesn't explain why you're here."_

"_I don't follow," Sokka said slowly. _

_Though he kept his tone nice and even, the young warrior could feel the nervousness building in his gut. _

"_You say you're from the colonies, right?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Our colonies are thousands of miles away," Piandao stated bluntly. _

"_Do you know what I see when I look at you, Sokka?"_

"_No, but I've got a feeling you're about to tell me."_

_The young warrior was relieved when the swordsman smirked at his wit instead of becoming angry. One thing Sokka had learned in his travels; if they're laughing at you, then they're usually not going to try to kill you. _

"_I see rough, simple clothing. I see…shoes worn down to thin soles. I see the shifty way you look around, trying to take in every detail of everything that's around you. I see weathered and calloused hands and a skinny frame that tells me you didn't grow up eating hearty meals three times a day. Basically, what I'm saying is, I see a penniless vagrant used to life on the leg and for the life of me, I can't figure out how someone like this could have afforded to travel all the way from the Earth Kingdom to my doorstep. Logically, you should have been pressganged into the military before you were able to leave the shores of the Continent."_

_The sword master placed a thoughtful hand on his chin and calmly stroked his goatee. _

"_And yet, here you are." _

_I felt like a bomb had gone off inside of Sokka's chest; he felt sick. Worse…he felt at a loss for words. He had to say something; find out a way to talk himself out of this garden, out of this house, back to the guys. They'd cut out of here immediately and haul tail to someplace far away from here. _

"_I…I…"_

_The young warrior struggled to find some words, any words, to tell Piandao but was halted in his metaphorical tracks by a single gesture from the sword master. _

"_Look kid, I don't much care if you're some kind of runaway or a deserter or whatever. Who you are and where you come from aren't important to me. As long as you can show me that you've got what it takes, I'll let you stay here."_

_Not for the first time in his life, Sokka was struck dumb by the power of his own luck. Sure Piandao now thought that he was some type of unsavory character, but at least the master thought he was an unsavory __**Fire Nation**__ character. As long as he didn't screw up that illusion, Sokka figured that he should be fine. _

"_Thanks," the young warrior said. "I appreciate it." _

"_You should," Piandao replied. "I'm not known for giving many favors."_

_Savoring the feeling of having just dodged a massive boulder, Sokka walked over and took a seat on a nearby rock to wait for the return of Itza and the other disciples. Piandao, meanwhile, simply strolled around the clearing, admiring his Ember Lilies and Summer Roses; apparently content to wait out the return of his servants in silence. _

_Sokka made a conscious decision not to look at what the sword master was doing; Piandao had been able to read him so easily before and, to be frank, it was an unsettling as well as unwelcome experience. The young warrior was in no hurry for that to happen again. Instead, he decided to use this moment of peace to think up a more complete backstory for himself; he had been extremely lucky that Piandao hadn't bothered to press him for more details about where in the colonies he came from and he couldn't assume that somebody else- a servant or one of his fellow students- wouldn't be more interested. _

_Just as Sokka had finished piecing together a new false history for himself, the hunchbacked gardener reappeared, accompanied by two middle-aged men in dirt stained clothing and three younger men, armed with blades, who all looked to be around his own age. _

"_Thank you Lee, Itza, Kai," Piandao said, nodding to each of his servants in turn. "I'll take them from here."_

_As the gardeners excused themselves, the three young men lined themselves before the sword master. Sokka noted that not one of them spared him even the slightest glance; they certainly recognized that he was there- they'd have to have less depth perception than Toph not to- they just didn't see him as important enough to take note of. That condescension…it was so similar to somebody else he knew, but he couldn't place a name. _

"_Gentlemen," Piandao said curtly. "You'll be happy to know that I've added another student to our group."_

"_Excellent master," the one in the middle said. "When do we get to meet him?"_

"_Right now, as a matter of fact."_

_Piandao turned and bade Sokka to stand and introduce himself. Not bothering to rise from his rock, the Water Tribe warrior gave a friendly wave to his new classmates. _

"_How's it going?"_

_Sokka almost laughed at loud at the appalled looks he received. Piandao's three other students- all of them tall, all of them handsome, all of them clad in finely tailored clothing and armed with swords that were of the highest quality- appeared utterly flabbergasted that this scruffy…person was to be one of Piandao's disciples. The young warrior's eyes flicked towards the sword master. Piandao looked like he was trying to fight down an attack of the giggles. Sokka began to get a clearer idea of the reason why he had been accepted as a disciple so readily. _

"_Him," the one on the left asked, disbelief evident in his voice._

"_Now, now gentlemen," Piandao said, his voice suddenly stern. "Well-bred men such as yourselves have better manners than this. Introductions please."_

_Sour looks on all of their faces, the three disciples of Piandao nevertheless did as they were told. The one on the left, a bulky young man with piercing amber eyes and a prominent nose went first. _

"_I am Iroh, son of General Fa-Tzu of the Northern Star army."_

_His speech was curt, blunt and without warmth. He was annoyed that he should have to extend such niceties to someone who was clearly beneath him. The one in the middle, a classically dashing young man with an exquisitely groomed mustache and clad in the unusual sartorial choice of elegant purple fabrics with gold trim around the collar and sleeves, went next. _

"_My name is Yanto," he said, the haughty sneer in his voice matching perfectly to the one he held on his face. _

"_I have the honor of being the son of Yanzai of Ix, the Executive Secretary of the Imperial Minister of Finance."_

_Yanto said the last sentence as if being the offspring of a glorified bean counter was some type of big accomplishment that Sokka should be in awe of. The young warrior already felt like punching him in the face. Punching him…in the face…._

_Hahn! That's who these guys reminded Sokka of! Whatever happened to that guy?_

_While Sokka was wondering about the fate of Princess Yue's betrothed, the third of the disciples, a round-cheeked young man who was sporting the beginnings of the side whiskers popular among men in the Fire Nation. _

"_My name is Yarai. I am the son of Colonel Yanzai of the Far Eastern Army and the nephew of the governor of the imperial city of New Ozai. How do you do?"_

_Though Yarai matched the aloof tone of the others, he at least had enough manners to bother with a bow for Sokka. _

"_It's nice to meet all of you," the Water Tribe warrior said, lying through his teeth. _

"_My name's Sokka. I come from the colonies. My dad's a fisherman and I have a little sister. That's pretty much it about me."_

"_Where's your sword," the one named Yanto questioned. _

"_Come again?"_

"_Your sword," the nobleman repeated, annoyance evident in his voice._

"_I, uh, don't actually have one just yet."_

_Sokka smiled cast his eyes towards the ground, feigning shame. In truth, though, he was a bit embarrassed about coming to study under a master swordsman without being the owner of a sword. _

"_You're a student of the art of fencing, yet you don't even have a blade of your own?"_

_Where Sokka failed to inspire pity, he succeeded in courting contempt. The trio of Fire Nation nobles all looked at him with various degrees of disgust and disbelief._

"_Gentlemen, behave yourselves," Piandao chastised. "Now that we've all met each other, let's all head back up to the house. Today, I'm going to be overseeing your training personally." _

_The sword master turned on his heel and began walking briskly up the path back towards his mansion. His first three disciples followed behind him, leaving Sokka to bring up the rear. The trio of nobles seemed to approve of the Water Tribe warrior's position and never spared him another glance. As they walked, the young warrior avoided their gaze and maintained a posture of subservience, but he was actually busy assessing all three. Though he had just been introduced to them for the first time, Sokka already felt he had a handle on the personalities of Yarai, Yanto, and Iroh._

_These were children of privilege; real aristocrats from a long line of bluebloods who liked to look down their noses at people from the lower classes. They were all clearly arrogant, clearly pompous, and clearly not keen on the idea that peasant like Sokka would be elevated to the same status as them, however temporarily. They'd see him as a nuisance; an outsider; a fool on holiday above his station in life. Basically, they wouldn't see him as a threat. _

_Perfect. _

_In fact, the only person who really concerned Sokka was Piandao himself. The young warrior was almost certain that the sword master had brought him in for the specific purpose of pissing off his other students. And pissed off they were; the three nobles were more than annoyed by the peasant in their midst, they were genuinely __**offended**__. What kind of teacher- what kind of person- does something like that? _

'Two kinds_,' Sokka thought to himself. '_The bored and the sadistic_.' _

_But which kind was Piandao?_


End file.
